


Nil igitur mors est ad nos

by Like_a_Hurricane



Series: Pernicious Prompting [15]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/F, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-11
Updated: 2013-04-13
Packaged: 2017-12-08 05:34:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/757654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Like_a_Hurricane/pseuds/Like_a_Hurricane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha Romanov’s dances with Death bring her all sorts of places. Loki has his own deal with Death, of which all are suspicious, especially his daughter, and especially once he’s stolen from where he was supposed to be safely incarcerated in Asgard. Chaos ensues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> _Nil igitur mors est ad nos_ \- “Death, therefore, is nothing to us.”
> 
> This is for the lovely [quicksilvertongued](http://quicksilvertongued.tumblr.com/) and everyone else on Tumblr who requested Hel/Natasha. Because I love you.

Natasha Romanov has always had a closer relationship to Death in her various forms than most would consider healthy. She herself was more resistant to death than most, thanks to immunity against the ravages of time, and other perks from her time spent in the Red Room facility, and the effects of the serum given to her whilst there. The Russian serum wasn’t the spectacular success that Captain America’s was, but it was rather more stable, and a bit more consistent. That hadn’t been enough to save the others from the Red Room from gruesome fates: few aside from Agent Romanov remained, and those few in question were missing, rather than confirmed dead or alive. Natasha was used to being the exception, but never enough to make her truly incautious. She was still mortal; more human that the Captain, less so than Hawkeye or Tony Stark, Natasha could still be killed if she did not use every advantage within her reach and capabilities.

She was far older than she looked, and that time hadn’t been wasted; she was always learning new tricks, adding them to her collection, practicing them instead of sleeping every few days. Sleep wasn’t always necessary, though she always knew when she did need it.

All her life, she’d been honing herself, sharpening herself, becoming a better and better weapon. Knowing her limitations, knowing her own humanity, she found ways to make sure that she rarely needed more than a human would. Patience helped, and without old age to worry about, Natasha had developed an eerie patience that came from being alive so long, practiced at her trades for so long, and how well she’d gotten to know the feeling of time passing.

She was only ever a weapon for the sake of others because it was the best way to keep herself busy, to keep herself in peak condition, to keep herself grounded in the present, and because nothing was more satisfying than a good hunt. Deep down, when the cat-and-mouse balance became more and more uncertain, when she had to use all of her wits, the best of her tricks, and really extend her metaphorical claws––those moments, usually far too quiet, those breathless moments where it came down to patience and timing, for whether she could live or die––those moments were sharp and fierce and overwhelming, and then they were over. There was her target, she was where she needed to be, and she caught them, took them down, with motions so smooth and practiced that they felt effortless. It felt like flying, like letting go, when she won: her mind quiet and tranquil, just for those few moments, full of the whispering peace of death, or something like it.

Winning didn’t always mean killing someone, but for a very long time, it had seemed to. The quiet lasted longer after that, of course. Death tended to have that silencing effect on most people. Some exceptions, of course. Natasha’s life was full of exceptions.

“I will never fall in love” was a rule she’d once set for herself.

She wished that more exceptions to her own rules, of that sort, were still alive. It was selfish desire, but she felt it nevertheless. Either death collected them, or their own lives and destinies steered them away, it seemed. The latter case was always oddly comforting, even when she missed them.

At least they were safe. They had the chance to live full lives, with decent endings, rather than abrupt or ill-timed ones. It was just change, but it was a better chance than they might have had if they had stayed close to the Black Widow.

The Black Widow, after all, danced with death more often than she did any of her lovers, and the closer one drew to the Widow, the closer death too, would be drawn to one’s own self.

Natasha had caught glimpses of a woman, sometimes, after killing someone. Sometimes she was spectral, other times frightfully solid and too real. She had appeared the first time in the Red Room, after Natasha had already killed several men. For many years, it was the only time that the spy had ever seen the lady without a corpse between them. The lady wore dark robes, loose, but not such that her curves were hidden, and her face was pale, with elegant features and large unnatural eyes: like holes in the world, through which distant, dying stars could be glimpsed.

Mistress Death appeared to Natasha the first time as she was being prepared for injection with the Russian super-serum. Her smile was the most beautiful thing that the young girl-spy, strapped into one of the Red Room’s steel chairs, had ever seen. She hadn’t dared say a word about the lady, but stared as doctors moved around her, answering their questions with almost-polite curtness, and kept her gaze fixed upon the lady in black, who stood very close in front of her. None of the doctors noticed how they stepped around the lady. They showed no indication that they were aware of her at all.

As the needles pushed into Natasha’s skin, Mistress Death reached out.

And as the serum entered her veins, the pretty face became a skull, and the fingers touching Natasha’s brow were cold, bare bones.

Natasha remembered the dark creeping in, seeming so sudden and loud that it muffled her own scream, but as her own voice fell away, and before she could escape consciousness, she heard two words like the scrape of stone as a tomb door was forced shut: _not forever._

 

~~

 

In the years that followed, Natasha saw the lady a dozen more times. As the Cold War ended, and Natasha began her slow ascent out of the dark and into work with less death, the visits seemed less frequent, but more... solid.

It was only after Loki and the Tesseract brought the Avengers together that she first heard the lady’s name. She loathed Loki all the more for it: for being the one to tell her, to make the lady more real.

Before the dawn after the invasion of New York, and thus before he could recover from his injuries sufficiently to require muzzling as his magic returned, Natasha and Nick Fury did a bit more interrogation. Nick gave in before she did. He was, after all, young; he lacked her extremity of patience, and well knew it.

Natasha lingered, waiting for the light on the camera to go off.

Nick was young, and he trusted her more than he should. She took advantage of this only rarely, but she’d wanted a private word or two with this one.

“Interesting,” Loki mused. “You’re far more tricky than I initially credited you for, dear lady. My sincerest apologies.” Then his grin twisted unkindly. “It won’t happen again.”

“You’re not the first to say that, and you won’t be the first I’ve proven wrong.”

“Perhaps. I will be less surprised the next time, however. That advantage is certainly one you’ve lost. I now know that I cannot predict you so easily. There is too much time and too many experiences trapped in that mind of yours. I should know better than to treat you quite like a mortal. You barely qualify, as it stands.”

“I’m no god.”

“Are you not?” Loki chuckled. “No, no, you are not an overseer. You prefer to play hero or villain as suits you, in the middle of the action, always. You cling to your humanity by such means, though why you bother, I can hardly imagine.”

“That’s why you can’t predict me easily.”

He nodded, just slightly, in agreement. “It is, indeed. I will credit you that.”

“You didn’t trick me so well before. You knew I wasn’t really upset, didn’t you?”

“I’m a god of deception. I must admit, your armor was thicker than expected, but I did not give you any information that I did not wish you to have.” He was still smiling, smug and a little playful, but also exhausted and more drained than he’d looked even upon his arrival via the tesseract. He was less chilled, but more broken, physically at least. Mentally, he still left Natasha with the impression that they hadn’t ruined his plans at all––quite the opposite, in fact.

“And you didn’t leave when you had the chance.” Her eyes narrowed. “And you aren’t leaving now.”

“Even if I wanted to, I could not leave now. Not with these preventing any travel-related magics, or useful opening, unlocking, unbinding, and other related spells.” He put his cuffed wrists together and lifted them just slightly for emphasis, but there was a slyness to his words. “They will anchor me, as Thor promised. Normally it would only hold me for so long, but I suspect my brother knows of that. I would like to enjoy what time I have left with words, before they too are taken from me.” His smile faded a bit at that, eyes narrowing. “At least it shan’t be needle and thread again.”

“Not yet,” Natasha conceded. “The others here have something against physical torment, at times. I personally think you’d deserve it.”

“You’d hardly be the first.”

“And I won’t be the last,” Natasha concluded for him.

Loki shrugged. “If you are not inclined to get to the point, might I request someone a bit more adept with their words, and a bit better at flyte? Mr. Stark, perhaps: of you mortals, he is the least dull, so far. Aside from Dr. Banner, of course, but I’m––less inclined to reacquaint myself with him terribly soon.” He straightened a little, subconsciously trying to appear less injured.

“Why did you let us capture you?”

The trickster leaned back gingerly in his chair, head tilted a little to one side, and his smile only lingering in his eyes, his mouth slack as he considered. “You have won. Savor your victory. You have won, and you brought death to an army of invaders. I am sure she thanks you for your contributions; I will bet you are even a favorite.”

Natasha’s shuttered expression showed a flicker of wariness, just a little.

“Ah,” Loki said, smile returning, small and knowing this time. “So that’s where she was. I had gotten accustomed to her audience, before my arrival here, and after, but she vanished not long after I tossed Iron Man out his own window.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” the spy said.

“You think that is the truth, but you also know that it is not, under the surface. Mistress Death must be fond of you, if she preferred to watch your killings, instead of any other deaths in the city today.”

Natasha shivered almost imperceptibly, but said nothing.

“You’re not a god, I grant you,” Loki said. “I suppose they think of you as something more like a mercenary Angel of Death.”

“Why are you here, Loki?” she said, cold and inflectionless.

“Because Mistress Death’s lover is more dangerous than all of your Avengers combined, and I am inclined to do him still greater mischief, given time,” he said, all mirth and humor draining from him even as his grin widened, until there was only teeth, and a fair bit of madness, on display. Then his expression relaxed again, calm and nonchalant, half-amused. “I will tell you no more than that.”

A knock on the door.

Natasha glanced at the camera in the corner: no lights. A glance at the microphone on the table showed similarly. There was even a crackle and pop from the underside of the table, which caused the trickster god to raise an eyebrow.

“It seems the concealed listening device has just destroyed itself. Interesting.”

Unsurprised to find that their privacy was only half-present, Natasha mentally updated her trust-distrust balance sheet for Nick Fury, and turned to open the door.

Tony Stark stood there looking bruised, sleepless, and unamused. “Secret briefings with the cameras off. Do I even _want_ to know what you two have been up to?”

“I think you’re already aware.”

“Well, JARVIS is, but he gave me a quick summary.”

“Then you can leave now.”

He stopped her closing the door by surreptitious application of his foot to stop it moving too far. “You’re not the only one with questions.”

Natasha turned and found Loki was watching Tony shrewdly, more guardedly than he’d been with her, and with more intent focus, like he found the inventor more of a puzzle to some degree. Facing Tony again, the spy did a few quick calculations. “You’ve called Pepper?”

With a grimace, Tony looked away for a moment, then shot her a glare. “Yeah.” His tone indicated that it hadn’t gone too well, which in turn suggested he’d been honest with her about the bomb-redirection from the get-go. He was full of restless energy. He needed distraction, needed a new problem to work on, and solve, and wanted to devote the full focus of his all-too-sharp mind to it, if possible.

Natasha began to smile, a little unkindly. Tony Stark, strung out, inclined to lash out with more viciousness than usual, and willing to use all of his intellect focused on a single goal, was a force to be reckoned with, and feared. She was more than happy to throw Loki to that particular wolf. “Well, he did request you, actually.”

Tony blinked, and shot the god of lies a shocked and slightly baffled look. “Seriously?”

“What I requested was a more entertaining interrogator,” Loki said flatly.

“Which you qualify for, given he named you as his first choice,” Natasha added.

“Well, color me flattered. Was throwing me out the window your idea of flirting?”

“Oh yes. I defenestrate anyone I intend to irrumate later,” the trickster deadpanned. “Only with your eventual, and no doubt enthusiastic consent, of course.”

Tony’s mouth fell open, then snapped shut as an afterthought. Then he bit back, “In your dreams, sweetheart,” through gritted teeth. “Even then only if you’re lucky.”

“What if I ask nicely?”

Natasha got the sudden feeling that these two, left alone in the same room, could lead to a number of new, even bigger problems than the ones they presented to her life just independently. It was a horrifying realization. “On second thought, Tony, get out.”

“What? He’s the one who-”

“Stop. Tony.” She glared. Lowering her voice until she was 90% sure Loki wouldn’t hear, she warned, “Are you here to flirt, or do you actually have some real questions for him? He’s not going to give up anything else to me, but if you think you can get anything more...”

Tony smiled an unpleasantly war-like smile, confident and threatening. “I can, and I will, as soon as you’re out of my way.”

Natasha almost hesitated, because she rarely got a glimpse under the surface façade of devil-may-care Tony wore. The inventor’s steely, predatory and slightly ruthless qualities were very near the surface tonight; she could almost make out some of the shape of them, and was almost unnerved, but not enough to change her decision. Thus she pulled the door open further, and slid past him into the hall. “Don’t make me regret this, Stark.”

“Then be back here in fifteen minutes, before they start trying to bring these hall cameras back up, or the ones in the cell,” Tony said, his voice inflectionless. He stepped in, and very quietly shut the door.

Natasha watched it the door for a few moments.

“Agent Romanov,” said a soothing, very English AI in her comm. “Please step away, out of earshot, if you’d be so kind.”

She shivered, suddenly all too aware of JARVIS’s presence, and how deep Tony’s invisible claws must have sunk into S.H.I.E.L.D. for that––for all of this.

In all her years, Natasha had met few people brilliant enough to unsettle her on the same level that Tony Stark occasionally did, when he made rare display of the extent to which he could hurt his allies, or destroy them with a word, if and when they weren’t paying close enough attention. Now, however, it was no comfort to her that one of those rare individuals was now in an unmonitored room with Tony Stark himself. It was usually a relief to recall that for all that dangerous brilliance, Tony had fairly good intentions. This time, Natasha actually had to wonder if that was entirely the case––or even if it were, whether that would prove to be enough.

Nevertheless, she walked away down the hall, out of hearing range.

Time would tell.

 

~~

 

“What did you learn?” She asked him, fourteen and a half minutes later.

“That you remind him a bit of his daughter, that I have an attractive mouth, he lost the battle but still might win the Xanatos gambit, and we need to ask Thor about what the fuck a ‘Thanos’ is before he leaves for Asgard. All I could gather was that it’s some guy in love with death, which sounds like the premise for more metal bands than JARVIS could list in hour, and he’s better than Google.”

Natasha absorbed that. “He means the physical manifestation of Death.”

Tony blinked. “The grim reaper? Kinky.”

“Sort of. She’s prettier than you’re thinking.”

The inventor froze. “You’re joking. Tell me you’re joking.”

“You just interviewed the god of lies and mischief. I’m an assassin; trust me to know a few things about death that might have escaped your notice.”

“Okay, how do you know, then?”

“I’ve seen...” Natasha trailed off. “Her.” She pointed.

Tony turned around, and his face fell. It was clear that he could see her to. “Illusion. We should muzzle him.”

“Not illusion,” Natasha said. “I’ve seen her before. Usually near a fresh corpse, though.”

Mistress Death’s lips quirked in a cold half-smirk, and she dipped her head briefly to Natasha before fixing her stare on the inventor again. She touched his chest, briefly, in the center of the arc reactor, and he jerked back with a full-body shudder, hitting the door and incidentally knocking it open.

She strolled in, looking far too corporeal.

Loki watched her in silence, his expression calm, wary, and respectful in a way that looked almost out of place on him. He bowed as far as his restraints would allow.

Mistress Death approached him, ran bony hands through his hair and bent as though to whisper something in his ear, but her lips didn’t move. Loki’s eyes fell shut, visibly rolling around behind the lids rapidly, as though he were dreaming, but faster. When his eyes opened, he appeared oddly somber, staring through the floor until Mistress Death straightened, two flesh-gloved fingertips pressing the underside of his chin to make him look up and meet her stare. Then her hand moved to his shoulder, and clenched hard enough to make the god wince. “I know,” he said, not quite rudely. He then said something else, in more reverent tones, and in a language that neither mortal in the room recognized in the least.

Then the lady nodded, and vanished.

The spy and the inventor stepped back into the room, the door closing just as the cameras in the hall came back on; although the ones in the interrogation room stayed off. “So...” Tony began, letting the unspoken question hang.

Loki smiled thinly at them. “It’s no concern of yours.”

“Somehow I doubt that,” Natasha mused.

“You’d be a fool not to.”

“You owe her, don’t you?” Tony asked. “She helped you get out.”

Natasha’s eyes widened, and she shot the inventor a surprised look. “Pardon?”

“What’d you promise her?”

Loki shook his head. “Promises from a god of lies? What respectable manifestation of a nigh-omnipresent universal force toward entropy would respect such a thing as that?”

“One that could kill you if you renege,” Natasha countered simply.

“Death isn’t something I fear any longer,” Loki said, his smile turning almost into a snarl, and for a moment, there was a very clear, near-hysterical edge to his anger, the sort suited to one who would consider death a relief if only they could inflict a bit more hurt before the end, and that urge to hurt, that bleak pride, would be enough to keep him going through hell after hell if he had to. Then it was gone behind the mask again.

All this time, and they hadn’t spotted it––none of them, except apparently Tony Stark. “You’re running,” she whispered, a little amazed.

Loki snorted. “Are they all this slow?”

“Not always. Natasha’s usually one of the sharper ones.”

“The general populace here must be even duller than Asgard. I didn’t think things could _be_ more boring than a near-utopia in the middle of a technological and cultural stability plateau, full of people who never really die,” Loki mused.

Tony snorted, amused despite himself. “Actually, I don’t think we could top that.”

Loki looked almost intrigued. “You’re suggesting that your planet isn’t dull?”

“We’ve made progress over the past few millennia, as you might’ve noticed.”

“Perhaps,” the trickster mused.

“You are both so modest, humble, and not at all condescending,” Natasha scathed. “Tony, get out.”

“Just another minute and the cameras will have some footage to loop while I walk past them,” the inventor muttered.

Loki smirked faintly. “You show such trust in your allies, Mr. Stark.”

“Enough to keep them alive,” Tony shot back, glancing at his watch. “Yep, we’re good. Natasha, you can have him back. Loki, if you threaten my planet again, I will make you wish for the Hulk’s brand hospitality before I’m done with you. Bye!” He stepped out the door and strode away down the hall.

“So you’re running,” Natasha said, closing the door again.

Loki said nothing.

The spy stepped closer. “From her lover.”

The trickster raised his eyebrows, blinking up at her with mock-innocent curiosity. “Are you going to threaten me too, dear lady?”

“Not really. I can’t stop you, on my own. He might be able to, given a little time.” She jerked her head toward the door. “And I’d stand with him, while he tried. And I wouldn’t be the only one, as you might guess. He’s better at keeping friends than you are, Loki.”

“Many are, of late. I was only made aware of that fairly recently, however. Astounding, is it not, how enough betrayal, in a short enough span of time, can make you happy to be free of such entanglements for long periods. You know the feeling, surely?” He smiled as she hid back behind her usual aloof mask. “I see that you do.”

“It hardly makes up for anything you’ve done.”

“I think you and I both know that redemption is the wistful pipe-dream of people with far less blood on their hands than you or I have. Only the victims can truly forgive those who have committed crimes against them, and you and I both would need a long time spent talking with the dead before we could come anywhere close to such resolution.”

“You’re a mage. You could do it if you wanted to.”

“The dead have their peace. I have yet to find any. I would only disturb them, according to my daughter,” Loki said, with a shrug. “And I am inclined to trust her word.”

“You asked her, though,” Natasha mused. “That’s something.”

The trickster rolled his eyes. “Is this where you hope to find some good left in my shriveled black heart?”

“Not at all.” She shrugged. “Hope is still more selfish than actual goodness.”

“Hope is an exercise in optimism. If you seek any of that, I might recommend to you my foolish brother.”

“Funny you sought him out so soon after you got here, when you’re running.”

Loki glared at her in silence for nearly a full minute, until the security feeds around them flickered back to life. Without even glancing at the devices, the trickster said, “You’re out of time.”

“I have all the time I need,” Natasha said.

“Of course. Agelessness has that benefit.”

Then the door opened, allowing in Thor, and Director Fury. Thor carried a finely-crafted metal object designed to facilitate Loki’s silence. At the sight of it, the trickster stiffened, his metaphorical hackles up as he glared at his brother. He said nothing as it was applied, and did not struggle or wince.

Natasha watched his face closely, and saw brief horror flicker across his expression, as it locked into place. Then nothing but his usual aloof mask, and seething resentment, covering up anything else altogether.

The next day, the trickster and his adoptive brother returned to Asgard.

It was the last they saw or heard of Asgard or any of the other seven realms aside from earth in Yggdrasil, for several long months, during which the city repaired itself, and Tony Stark quietly built a place for the Avengers in his tower. The Avengers: now 80% more S.H.I.E.L.D.-free, the only exceptions being Natasha and Hawkeye, who still worked there when not being Avengers.

They weren’t peaceful months, of course.

 

~~

 

It had been just over half a year since the invasion of New York. Tony Stark had taken care of some personal business, and come back from it broken up with Pepper, unnervingly sober (in a 3-month-chip fashion; he was otherwise still a devil-may-care ass most of the time, just not prone to being drunk at the same time anymore) and disconcerting new abilities where control of his machines were concerned thanks to Extremis. Natasha was particularly suspicious of his ability to see almost anywhere on the exterior of the planet through the Stark Industries satellite network at any given time, and said as much.

“Afraid I’ve seen you naked or something?”

That conversation hadn’t gone well.

And this meeting of the Avengers wasn’t looking much better, but given that they were meeting to discuss fairly trivial in-tower issues instead of any major threat to mankind this time, that was only to be expected. The course of any non-villain-related Avengers meetings never did run smooth. No one could focus, and the phrase “herding cats” was applicable when trying to get the group to agree to anything in particular.

Hulk was arguing with Hawkeye increasingly loudly, exchanging insults like particularly bitter and competitive siblings. Tony was casually cutting down Steve’s authority with offhand comments as he tried to stop the bickering. Natasha was left to exchange exasperated glances with T’Challa, who was the only other cool head in the room aside from her, by that point.

Then a loud crackle silenced the room and a small whirlwind formed in the middle of the round table in the center of the room. The sudden breeze was icy, and smelled of something––dead leaves, dry earth, and something more stale, like the air inside a tomb. Everyone was on their feet, ready to attack or flee. Hawkeye and Natasha had their weapons pulled. Tony just stood with his hands in his pockets. “JARVIS, what’s this localized disturbance think its doing?”

“It seems to qualify as magic, sir.”

Tony snorted. “Is it Doc Strange again?”

“No, sir.”

The inventor clicked his tongue. “Well, shit.” He took an extra step back.

“Preparing the Mark VII now, sir. Just say the word.”

Tony nodded, and didn’t say a thing, willing to wait just a bit longer, and jump behind Steve if it came down to it. He had a feeling that if there were really any major, hostile intentions involved, they wouldn’t get so much warning before disaster struck.

A crack in the air formed over the table, then widened, and deposited two large somethings––one tall and female, the other male and more recognizable.

“Thor!” Steve shouted.

T’Challa looked to Natasha, who nodded at him. “Yeah, that’s Thor.”

“My friends,” the thunderer greeted, looking grave.

“Ooh! Ooh! Lemme guess!” Tony said, raising his hand and waving it like an eager student. “Loki got out!”

Both Thor and his companion turned to him. The thunderer looked both exasperated and resigned. The lady with him seemed more amused. She was a bit unusual, in looks. On her left side she appeared pale and flawless, with smooth hair like spun gold, and a dark green eye. On her right, her hair was black as pitch and her skin was a dark, rich blue, with intricate markings over every inch, like wood grain interwoven with the pattern of clinging ivy. Depending on the light, and how she carried herself, the markings made her face look alternately elegant or almost skeletal. On her darker side, the sclera of her eye was ink-black, while the iris was pale grey.

There was something very familiar about the curve of her lips as she smiled.

“Good guess,” the lady said. “You’re only a little off.”

“Ah, so he made it look like someone stole him?” Tony tried.

“If he were pulling that trick again, I would know,” she said, lifting her chin slightly. “I am Hel Lokisdottir, queen of Helheim. My father has some explaining to do, and some things to return to me, and Thor insists that your ‘Avengers’ may be of some aid.”

Everyone not still staring at Hel turned questioning looks upon Thor. Clint lowered his gun. After a moment or two more, Natasha lowered hers as the goddess met her gaze. Hel held her stare for a long moment, then tilted her head a little, as though in curiosity, or something akin to recognition.

“My brother was taken by the Kree,” Thor said. “Heimdall and Odin both speak of your dealings with the Kree in voices of some awe. The Kree are wary of Asgard and can hide from us more often than we would prefer. Odin believes you all may know more of them than do we, at present, not only because they consider you less of a threat, but because you have... good sources.”

Steve and Tony exchanged looks. Steve then looked to Clint and the Hulk, while Tony similarly sought non-verbal opinions from T’Challa and Natasha, who both nodded at him slightly. _Tell him._ Clint and the Hulk merely shrugged. Steve sent the mad inventor a glance of unease.

“Maybe we do,” Tony said, ignoring the way Steve frowned at him. “On the condition you two keep it to yourselves. _Asgard_ doesn’t need to know.”

Thor nodded. “I understand.”

Everyone again looked to Hel.

Hel stood with her arms behind her, left hand grasping her right wrist. She wore clothes of a style not altogether unlike her father’s, but all in purple so dark it was nearly black, the metal of her light armor dark grey instead of gold or bright silver. Beside Thor, who looked almost deferential, she stood tall, distant, even aloof. After letting the silence stretch a bit, she half-smiled, a bit of mischief showing through her erstwhile solemnity. “I’m not of Asgard any longer, nor have I been for over a thousand years. I have no reason to offer them advantageous secrets if I might keep them to myself instead.”

Tony snorted and caught Natasha’s eye. “I see the resemblance, suddenly.”

The others appeared confused, save Hel.

“Ah, I had thought you must be the assassin he mentioned,” the goddess mused.

“I’m Natasha Romanov,” the assassin offered, with a nod. “You spoke with him before his recent vanishing act?”

“Yes. He was bound by wards that required blood from his closest kin. Adoption doesn’t cut it, there, apparently.” There was a hint of bitterness there.

Thor visibly winced. “Again, I am sorry-”

“ _Not_ here, uncle,” Hel said, her voice devoid of inflection. “And it is not _you_ who need apologize for keeping my own kin, and potential political leverage, from me.”

The thunderer sighed. “Very well.”

“He didn’t know he was adopted? Seriously?” Tony said.

“Nor did I,” Hel said, in grave and glacial tones.

The inventor whistled. “Damn. Odin really fucked up, there.”

“The greater the genius, the greater can be their oversights,” Hel remarked. “You must be Tony Stark.”

“The one and only. He mention me, too?” Tony’s smirk was cocky.

“No. My uncle, however, did remark on your inability to remain silent for too long, and your astonishing ability to offend people even when you’re ushering events into something like progress.”

“Sounds fairly accurate,” T’Challa mused.

Thor noticed him for the first time. “My apologies. We have not before met.” He stepped off the table, landing more gracefully than anyone in a cape and armor should really be able to manage. He extended his hand. “I am Thor Odinson, of Asgard.”

“I have heard much of you. I am T’Challa, self-demoted figurehead monarch and ambassador of Wakanda.” He shook Thor’s hand firmly, his smile amiable in the face of the thunderer’s mildly bemused expression. “I would happily join my fellow Avengers in aiding you in your quest, were I not needed by my kingdom for some time. Local diplomatic matters.”

“I quite understand. Perhaps we may fight together another day.”

“I look forward to it.”

“You can direct the rest of your questions to my uncle,” the goddess said, waving off the others before they could say another word. Then Hel, too, gracefully descended from her place on the table, standing near her uncle, and thus finding herself also close to Natasha, to T’Challa’s left, who stood in a very relaxed fighting stance: calm and steady, hands behind her back. As the others began to ask several questions of Thor at a time, Hel smiled at the assassin a little and said, “You appear wary of me, but not so much as the others are. Why is that?”

Natasha shrugged. “I am not afraid of you, and while I am suspicious of your motives, what I have seen of them makes me consider your degree of potential threat fairly manageable. Also, Thor trusts you, and it’s clear that you do care for him, even with all things considered. Your loyalty is obvious enough to be a comfort.”

“And yet still, you are a little wary.”

“I would be a fool if I weren’t. Also, I’m not sure I want to know what your father said about me, honestly.”

“Nothing too worrisome.” Her gaze took Natasha in from head-to-toe briefly. “He did not do you justice, I don’t think. He merely teased, and suggested we might have some things in common.”

“Such as?”

“Someone fond of us both, in her way.”

“Ah.” Natasha smiled a little, despite herself. “I’ve not seen her since his departure, actually.”

“And before that?”

“Not too frequently, but... over a dozen times.”

“She does like you, then.”

“I’m not at all sure that’s a good thing.”

“It’s neither good nor bad. It’s Death: she’s the ultimate neutral. She treats everyone equally, most of the time. There are some exceptions, but they are very rare.”

“Like her lover, maybe?”

Hel nodded. “Death is not meant to love. Not in the way that he desires, and his desire is something broken that should by rights die out. The fact it will not, and cannot, be wiped out, seems to be what draws her to him. It threatens to alter her more than any of us are comfortable with.”

“‘Us’ being?”

“Gatekeepers, watchers, guides and judges of the dead. I’m hardly alone in my profession. We all serve her, in the end. She collects few souls herself, save those she particularly cherishes, in her way.”

Natasha nodded, thoughtfully. “Pity, then.”

“Hm?”

“I don’t exactly plan to die anytime soon, but I would honestly look forward to time with you, more so than being collected by her.”

Hel smiled a little. “You know me but little.”

“And already, you’re better conversation.”

“That’s hardly difficult. She never speaks.”

Natasha’s eyes widened a moment, not for long, but the goddess was observant.

“Or, well, almost never. She spoke to you?”

“Only once.”

Hel’s curiosity was clear, but she only nodded, inquiring no further, sensing the other woman’s reluctance to say more. _Perhaps another time_ was implied.

Natasha took a deep breath and let it out slowly, relieved to put off revisiting those memories when it could be at all avoided. “I was unaware how rare the occurrence was.”

“She has said a total of three words to me, in over two thousand years of our acquaintance,” Hel mused. “Not one of them is a pleasant sort of memory. That seems the pattern.”

“Fitting, for death. Only pleasant when its a mercy, and that brand of mercy is clearly lacking if you’re still alive afterward,” Natasha offered.

The goddess beamed a bit more sincerely at that. “Quite true.”

“Natasha!”

“What, Tony?” Belatedly, the assassin realized she sounded more annoyed than she would usually give him the satisfaction of causing her to sound.

“Stop flirting, they’re getting mad at me an Thor about the whole Mistress Death thing. They like you better, please help!”

Stares from the rest of the Avengers suddenly fixed on Natasha. They looked annoyed, probably at the lack of sharing information of a potentially vital and/or troubling nature. Again. Natasha kept hoping they’d get used to her habits, but then recalled that she herself tended to chew out Tony when he pulled similar shit in his own ways, and decided not to mention it to anyone. “I thought it was obvious. He didn’t lose.”

As anticipated, this news didn’t exactly go over well. There was a lot of swearing, mostly from Clint, with Steve trying to make him stop.

Hel sighed. “My father’s handiwork: still masterful, as always.” Then her eyes narrowed a bit. “You mentioned you had not seen her since...”

“She visited him, briefly. She didn’t speak, but they clearly communicated something, before she vanished again,” Natasha offered.

“Who did what now?” Clint cut in.

“Death. _The_ Death, Mistress Death, has struck a deal with _Loki_ , of all people,” Hel sighed. “This does not bode well.”

“So does the name ‘Thanos’ ring any bells for you?” Tony chimed in.

The goddess scowled outright, at that. “My uncle did mention that he was involved. That is _why_ this does not bode well.” She turned on her heel and faced down the whole of the room in one flourish, glaring at each of them, pitching her voice to cut through the still-present susurrus of inquiries being shot at Thor. “I’m weary of this mob of disorganized inquiry, already. I don’t know how you people stand it. Sit, all of you.” She gestured at them, commanding and authoritative. It must have struck some reflexive chords amongst most of the Avengers: Steve, Clint, T’Challa, and even the Hulk quietly settled into their places around the table again. Thor shuffled around to find a seat of his own. Tony and Natasha remained standing.

The goddess raised an eyebrow at Natasha who glanced behind her, indicating Hel was between assassin and assassin’s chair. The goddess side-stepped, and Natasha sat down, still watching her. Tony didn’t sit.

“Well?” Hel shot Tony a  disapproving look.

“I like your style,” the inventor responded, and pulled out his own chair for her: less battle-scarred than most of the others. “May I offer you a seat?”

Hel snorted. “This is some Midgardian custom?”

“I’m offering a queen a better seat so she won’t slit my throat in my sleep. Chivalry has nothing to do with this,” Tony assured.

The goddess took the offered seat, amused.

Tony did not make the mistake of lingering, and instead snapped up one of the last remaining (mostly-intact) chairs in the room, near Hulk’s elbow. He was directly opposite Hel, in that spot. The table might’ve been round, but it was always pretty clear who was at the “head” on any given day. This time it also just happened to be... polar.

“It is fair to say that Thanos is directly involved here,” Thor began. “He has put a hefty price upon Loki’s head.”

“So hefty that the Kree decided that peaceful diplomatic relations with Asgard and my kingdom can go for a long walk off a short cliff, and they kidnapped Loki,” Hel added. “It was a quite tidy job: they kept him in his cell, with all of the specialized wards that comes with. It needs my blood to open it, incidentally, but we have some time before they work that out, I’ve no doubt.”

“But when they do,” Tony said slowly, “they’ll be after you, too.”

“Or at least a bit of my blood. I’d prefer to avoid that, however, and also retrieve my father mostly-intact, if at all possible,” Hel countered.

“So this is government-approved Kree activity?” Natasha inquired. “Or are we looking at just some suspiciously well-funded Kree kidnappers and smugglers?”

“The Kree have no love of Loki after a certain incident when the Skrulls made a wager with him two hundred years ago,” Thor said gravely. “We have had enough trouble with them since then, politically. He has been a wanted criminal to their government, but they had previously agreed to make no attempts to extradite him and put him on trial for his crimes while he remained in Asgard. When he went missing, their ambassador informed us that times change, and left Asgard altogether.”

“He has such a way with people, my father,” Hel mused.

Tony smirked a bit despite himself. “Sounds like what happened to me in Singapore when I was a kid.”

“A kid?” Steve sounded alarmed.

The inventor waved him off. “Well, 15, so it was summer break while I was in college, but-”

“That aside,” Natasha cut him off. “I think we need to contact Mar-Vell, for this. We need to know about the status of-”

And that was when the northwest corner of the building was hit with explosives, sending a shudder through the rest of the tower and making for a violent, cacophonous serious of crashing sounds.

“DIPLOMATIC EFFORTS TO REACH QUEEN HEL OF HELHEIM HAVE FAILED: SURRENDER THE QUEEN AND WE WILL LEAVE YOU IN PEACE.”

The Avengers exchanged glances.

Hel sighed, and summoned a ball of fiery dark purple energy to her hand. “Apparently, they have better mages than I recall. I hadn’t expected them to work out their need for me so soon.”

“Avengers Assemble,” Tony said, sounding almost bored. “JARVIS! Sent the Mark VII my way, won’t you?”

Considerable violence followed afterward.

 

~~

 

Captain Mar-Vell wasn’t the easiest man, or Kree, to reach on short notice.

Tony Stark, however, was a persistent bastard, and hadn’t failed to track him down yet, though it took him almost a full ten minutes of concentration and hackery this time, which was impressive.

“My compliments on your new security upgrades. We need you.”

“You never call just for conversation do you, Mr. Stark?”

“Not unless I’m dating someone. So. You’re welcome.”

“Point taken.” Mar-Vell’s eyes narrowed a little. “Who is that over your shoulder?”

“She’s one of the ones in need of your help. Her dad’s been stolen.”

“You mean kidnapped?”

“He’s in a particularly unpleasant chamber, not quite in stasis, but it does include life support systems,” Hel explained. “He and the cell were taken altogether for a bounty and because the Kree don’t like him.”

“I’m getting a bad feeling about this,” Mar-Vell intoned. “You look familiar, miss...”

“Hel Lokisdottir.”

The Kree winced at that. “Ah. I should have guessed. Of course. And Thor Odinson is on your team of merry men, is he not, Stark?”

“You got in one, buddy. Got any info for us?”

“Give me two days, and I will get you all the information that I can about his location, and all travel arrangements. I cannot do more than that without arousing a dangerous degree of suspicion concerning my motives.”

“They’ll still have him in two days?” Tony inquired idly.

“Yes. They will want to hold him as an example, and celebrate capture of him for a time, before quietly handing him over to another party for his death sentence,” Mar-Vell explained.

“Ah, interplanetary politics,” Hel mused.

“Looking forward to your reports, Mar-Vell darling,” Tony deadpanned.

“Fare you well, Stark. I recommend you keep your... _guest_ well-guarded.”

“I watched her rip the head off a guy who could’ve been your cousin, bare-handed, just this afternoon,” the inventor said blithely. “I think she can handle herself.”

Mar-Vell raised an eyebrow slowly.

Hel smiled, small and sweet and icy.

“Point taken,” the Kree said.

“I thought Natasha was going to swoon,” Tony muttered.

“Is that jealousy, Mr. Stark?”

“ _I’m_ supposed to be the shameless bisexual flirt around here.”

“Hanging up now,” Mar-Vell sighed.

“Bye,” Tony said.

“Charming to meet you,” added Hel.

 _Click_.

 

~~

 

It was a few days, two violent Kree attempts to capture Thor and Hel, and one wild goose chase later, before any of them found out exactly why Hel was even interested in tracking down her father in the first place.

Natasha had just left the medical wing, where the Hulk had let Bruce out for the sake of doctoring Clint’s three broken ribs, and the rather nasty knife-wound just under Natasha’s left clavicle. It would be healed within just over a day, thanks to a certain serum, but she’d take what help she could get. Stitching the wound shut helped in that regard, making it easier for her body to mend the tissues.

It was late, and the others were asleep or on patrol somewhere.

Natasha had already decided to forgo sleep, and was slightly surprised to find Hel in the kitchen when she went there to make a pot of tea. The goddess had already made one, it seemed, and offered to share. Natasha accepted, and they settled at the bar-style counter in comfortable silence. Hel was out of her armor, which had seemed the worse for wear two hours before. She still wore tall boots, but her trousers were of a softer grey leather with no gleaming metal, and her vest-like shirt had no sleeves, and a mostly-open collar. Natasha found it a little distracting, and so broke the silence with a question: “What did your father do that you’d rescue him from the Kree for a chance to make him sorry for doing it?”

The goddess chuckled a little. “Is it so obvious?”

“No, but I’ve seen some of his work.”

“He’s too clever by half,” she said, “and always inclined to teach me some form of lesson, at times. I invested almost half of my power into a few objects of mine. He has two of the smaller ones.”

“The other?”

“I carefully took apart, bringing the power back into myself. Otherwise, traveling here would have been considerably more difficult. I had not realized I’d grown so reliant on them: it’s a terrible idea, keeping too much of oneself in objects that can be stolen.” She grimaced. “Not that I was aware they _could_ be stolen, until he managed it. While we were binding him in his prison, no less! I would be in awe of him sometimes, if he were only less infuriating.”

Natasha smiled a little. “I know the feeling. We have one or two of our own around here who behave similarly.”

“Yes, I have noticed you Avengers seem to regard Stark similarly.” Her eyes glittered with a hint of mirth. “They’re all too alike, he and my father.”

“Uncomfortably so, yes.”

“Oh?”

“The only thing worse than Tony Stark flirting with one of our enemies, is when that enemy is Loki,” Natasha deadpanned.

Hel burst into giggles, queenly dignity seemingly set aside in favor of wicked amusement. “That must have been spectacular.”

“I’m glad I missed most of it, honestly.” She contemplated how Tony had seen what she and the others had all missed, with Loki: that he was running from something worse than the authorities of Earth or Asgard. At times, she wondered what on earth that conversation had been like, with both men ruthlessly slicing into each other: Loki’s acute skills of observation and reading of people, and Tony’s intensity and fierce intellect brought to bear on a single focal point. “I might have shot them both, otherwise.”

“Ineffective, for Loki.”

“I’d have found a way.”

Hel hummed. “Perhaps so. You are indeed creative.”

“As are you,” the assassin offered, a smile curving her lips. Seeing the goddess in battle over the past few days had been a sight to behold. She wielded her magic like whips, like claws, like a matador’s cape, even Natasha had trouble keeping track of Hel’s daggers: which hand they were in, where she’d drawn them from, where they vanished to as she moved like flowing water around and through their enemies.

Natasha looked at her a little more closely. “Not sleeping well?”

“What was your first clue?”

“I gathered from Thor that Aesir can often go longer without sleep than humans. I don’t, either, for slightly different reasons.” Natasha shrugged. “Normal sleeping habits are not common in this tower, even amongst those who are more human, though.”

Hel shook her head. “Fair enough.” She ran a hand through her hair on the paler side. “Two objects, he took: a dagger, and a mask. Almost half of me, my soul and my magic, is in those. It wears on me, when I use a great deal of magic so far from my home,” she explained quietly. “And it makes me too restless to sleep, even when I need the rest to recuperate what power I still have.”

“I am sorry.”

“Don’t be. I have an equally personal question for you.”

Natasha took a sip of tea, definitely not hiding behind her cup at all. “Oh?”

Hel rested her elbow on the bar, leaning a little closer to the assassin. “What are you, Natasha Romanov? I can see something, in others, of how their lives may end; it is a part of my nature to know the endings of people and things. There are always events out of sight with the potential to change it, that can cause the lines to blur––Stark to me is a series of blurs, for example, but you... I cannot see you at all. Not you, nor the Captain. I know something of what he is, but what of you?”

“Something like him, but the serum I was given was a little less potent, and a lot less... volatile. The results were not as immense, but they were more consistent. I do not age. This-” She tapped the gauze taped over her stitches, light enough not to disturb the wound. “-will be healed in a day or two. I can still be killed, if I do something too reckless, like getting shot in the head, but I’m otherwise more––durable. And long-lived.”

“Not quite mortal, but not exactly a god,” Hel mused.

“I’m still mortal. Just tougher than most.”

“You are actually quite breathtaking.”

Natasha raised an eyebrow slowly. “And you’re a goddess.”

“A goddess who would like to touch you anywhere and everywhere that you might let me.”

Thinking about it for only a moment, the assassin set down her cup and rose to her feet, side-stepping so that she stood between Hel’s knees. “Well, then.” She brushed her fingers down the goddess’ right cheek, finally getting to feel the surprisingly smooth texture of those markings she’d been curious about for days now. “Only if I get to touch, too.”

“That’s mandatory, absolutely,” Hel concurred, gripping her waist and pulling her close. “In fact.” She rested a hand over the wound on Natasha’s shoulder, sending sudden painful chills through the assassin’s body. “Shhh. It’s okay.”

The pain cleared––all of it, very suddenly. “You can do that?”

“It’s easier with flesh. I lack the energy to mend bones, presently. Otherwise I might have offered your little hawk some aid.”

Natasha relaxed a little. “I do know of a cure for restlessness that keeps you from sleeping,” she said softly, “but it requires the removal of your clothing.”

Hel pulled her down into a kiss, those lips still curved a bit wickedly until they parted fort her, and Natasha learned quickly that the silver-tongue of myth and legend was apparently a family trait. Letting herself melt into the kiss, Natasha made a noise of appreciation low in her throat, and another when that made Hel slide closer, until they were pressed as flush as they could with the goddess still perched on that barstool. The barstool had some benefits, though, such as how it let Hel wrap her indecently long legs around the backs of Natasha’s own, tangling them up. Under Natasha’s hands, Hel was wiry muscle and more curves than should be possible given how tall and narrow the goddess usually appeared in her armor and formalwear. Hel arched into each touch, hungry for the contact in a shameless, confident matter.

Natasha wasn’t surprised in the least by their abrupt teleportation into the guest room Hel had claimed in Avenger’s tower, but was a little surprised at just how quickly the goddess pinned her to the bed with her arms above her head, hovering over her close, with a knowing, predatory look. “Still certain?”

The light was lower, in here. Hel looked considerably less human in the low light, the deeper shadows contributing to that impression: she looked otherworldly, slightly skeletal down her darker side, her bicolor eyes very dark.

Natasha reflected that the normal human response would probably be doubt or hesitation. Hers wasn’t. “Absolutely,” she said, not missing a beat, her voice becoming lower and more sultry. “Now what do you plan to do about it?”

Hel smirked and released her wrists, hands sliding under the assassin’s shirt as she leaned down until their lips brushed. “I plan to have you.” She discovered Natasha’s bra, and after brief exploration of the odd Midgardian undergarment, vanished it and the shirt both with a flick of her fingers, which then set about exploring the assassin’s breasts. “I plan to taste and touch every inch of you, Natasha.”

With her own hands slid down the back of Hel’s pants to grip her ass, Natasha ground her hips up against the goddess’, getting enough friction to drag small breathy noises from them both. “Mutual,” the assassin insisted firmly, and pulled Hel into another kiss, slow and deep.

Then Hel’s clothes disappeared, followed shortly by what was left of Natasha’s.

“ _Krasivo_ , Hel, so beautiful,” the assassin breathed, and executed a quick but elaborate move that sent her stronger opponent rolling until Natasha straddled her hips, letting her hands slide up along the goddess’ long, lean body from her hipbones, up along her waist to caress her breasts. “Just gorgeous.”

Hel arched into the touch, letting her head fall back when Natasha nipped at her throat. “You should talk.” Gripping the assassin’s hips hard, she arched up, grinding them together where they most wanted for friction and gasping a little. “Oh, so hot for me, aren’t you?” She slipped one dark hand between their bodies, to the heat she’d felt between Natasha’s legs, sampling a bit deeper and smirking at the noise her exploration dragged from the stoic assassin’s chest.

Natasha began muttering in Russian, at the feel of those long fingers slipping past the outer lips of her sex and stroking the sensitive flesh there, circling her clit teasingly at first before sinking fore- and middle-fingers into her cleft. Hel’s thumb settled over her clit then, rubbing small, firm circles over it until the assassin couldn’t help but rock her hips into the touch, seeking more pressure, more heat.

Hel sat up on one elbow, nuzzling at the smaller woman’s neck. “I did say I wanted to taste you, darling. Spread yourself for me, and get comfortable.”

Smiling a little, with another roll of her hips, Natasha countered, “And if I asked you to lie back for me?”

“I’d point out that I can put my hands to better use with you more... like this.” Folding her own legs under her, Hel pushed Natasha back slowly with one hand on her collarbone. “Let me?”

The assassin nodded. “Yeah. Please.” She rolled her hips again, then relaxed, laying back and letting the goddess settle between her legs, still making small sounds under the ministrations of Hel’s long, talented fingers. When the rubbing thumb was replaced by the heat of Hel’s mouth, Natasha made an utterly incoherent sound and shuddered, because she’d thought that tongue was talented _before_ , but apparently that had just been the tip of the iceberg. Half-coherent exclamations in mixed Russian and English followed thereafter as the goddess treated her skillfully, and with determined enthusiasm.

Her climax came swiftly, and rather than let it fade, Hel settled her lips over the now hyper-sensitive bundle of nerves she’d been doing such marvelous things to and sucked hard, tongue flicking across it as she did, and sped up the pace of her fingers until she’d drawn another, still more bone-melting orgasm from the lovely assassin, and Natasha’s finally tugged at her hair weakly, whimpering a quiet, “Enough, I can’t-” and breaking off with a stuttering moan.

Hel moved up her body, breathing hard. “You taste lovely.”

Natasha grinned a bit, green eyes mostly pupil. “My turn.”

“Need a moment to–– _oh-_ ”

“Move up,” Natasha said firmly, pausing to lick her now-wet fingers, getting a nice sample. She steered Hel a bit until she was arranged to her satisfaction, then returned her clever fingers to their work. “You’re already close, aren’t you?”

The goddess nodded. “You’re inspiring. _Oh, yes, there._ ”

“I’ll bet you could come now, just from me asking.”

“Natasha...”

“It helps that my fingers are in you, though, and you feel so good, Hel.”

The goddess leaned in, hiding her face against Natasha’s neck as her breathing grew more ragged. “Please...”

Rubbing fast with arousal-slick fingers over Hel’s clit, the assassin hissed, “Come for me.”

And with that, the goddess shuddered, and obeyed. Limp and pliant, she let Natasha roll her over and spread her out on the bed.

Natasha waited until Hel’s eyes fell open again before she grinned, wide and wicked. “Now, about that taste...” She settled in, low over Hel’s body.

“I think propositioning you was one of the best ideas I’ve had in years,” Hel panted, then threw her head back with a low whimper as the assassin showed off some of her more creative tongue-based skills, which had nothing at all to do with language.

 

~~

 

Clint was staring at her the next morning. And staring. And _staring_.

“What?”

“It’s past ten.”

“And?”

“You slept past ten, without international flights being involved?”

Natasha shrugged. She was normally a ridiculously early riser, but there were always exceptions. Jet-lag was the more common one. Being exceptionally well-shagged by a goddess was another that had been, until very recently, pretty much unheard-of. The thought brought a small, satisfied smirk to her lips that she did not hide behind her coffee cup in time.

Clint’s eyes widened. “Oh. _Oh_. Wait, who?”

“None of your business.”

“But... there’s a limited pool, here. It wasn’t me, or I’d be in a better mood-”

“God, you’re an ass, sometimes,” she muttered.

“It wasn’t Stark because he’d be bragging.”

“Now I’m getting offended.”

“Banner is a no, because we’d have noticed any Hulk-related incidents-”

“Yep. I’m now offended.”

“It’s not Steve because he’s not blushing anytime someone mentions you.”

“This isn’t helping.”

“And it’s not T’Challa because he was out on patrol with Thor until about dawn, before he left on a flight for Wakanda. And that also rules out Thor, because he’s snoring in the breakfast nook, and has been all morn-” Clint’s eyes suddenly widened. “Wow. You... wow.”

“I should kill you in your sleep. I could do. You _know_ I could.”

“I do, but, no seriously, I’m impressed and a little jealous.”

“Mmm. You should be incredibly jealous,” Natasha purred. “Just incredibly.”

“Oh, hell, now you’re gloating. I hate your just-got-spectacularly-laid gloating.”

Hel chose that moment to stroll in from the hall, dressed a bit more formally than the night before. “Thank you, darling, anytime,” she said, pausing to kiss the side of Natasha’s neck with apparent intent to move on, only to linger a bit. “I could’ve sworn I left a respectable mark, here.”

“I heal quickly. So do you.”

“Very sad,” Hel sighed, and bit the spot.

Caught by surprise, Natasha sucked in a breath, eyelids fluttering. Belatedly, she went to shoot Clint a glare to prevent him saying anything, but he seemed to be staring with his mouth slightly open, unable to remember how to form words. _Oh, I can hope that’ll last_. Then Hel’s hands settled on her waist and the goddess was biting and sucking at a particularly tender spot, and Natasha was thoroughly distracted by that for a moment. Until it abruptly stopped and she was able to speak. “That... uhm...” Sort of.

“Complaints?” Hel inquired lightly.

“Nnot complaint, no, wrong word entirely.”

Very softly, the goddess whispered in her ear, “I would honestly like to have more than a single night with you. Give it some thought, hmm?” She then kissed the assassin’s temple and released her, wandering over to the espresso machine and politely asking JARVIS how to make it function.

Once she’d pulled herself together after a few decidedly off-balance seconds, Natasha reached out and tapped Clint’s chin sharply, snapping his mouth shut.

The archer blinked a few times rubbed his eyes with his hands, and then stared at her. “That just happened?”

“That just happened.”

“Are you, uh...”

“It’s under serious consideration,” Natasha mused, shooting Hel a look across the kitchen. The goddess caught it, offered a smirk, and continued her discussion with JARVIS. Where Thor was notoriously wrong-footed on any of his first attempts to use or approach unfamiliar Midgardian technology (though he usually had them mastered by his third attempt, which put him a bit ahead of Steve in some regards: mostly with computer-like devices and remote controls) Hel took it all relatively in her stride. Thor’s first experiences with JARVIS had been decidedly awkward, but Hel just thoughtfully compared him to an early construct her father once made for her when she was a child, and proceeded to converse with him casually, in a manner JARVIS seemed to enjoy. The look on Tony’s face after the first such incident had been priceless, and it was prone to reappearing any time he stumbled across Hel and JARVIS conversing with similar easy camaraderie.

Now, for instance.

Tony strode in looking intensely focused, sleep-deprived, and in need of caffeine. He paused, stared at Hel talking to JARVIS for a few moments, and then stalked over to the coffee pot at Clint’s elbow, muttering something under his breath about tracking spell scans and search algorithms as he poured himself a cup. Once he’d drained just over half of it, he noticed Natasha patiently staring at him, and the mark on her neck, and choked loudly.

Clint sniggered at him.

“Shut up, Katniss,” the inventor muttered, and elbowed him. Tony looked toward Hel, then back to Natasha, and raised his eyebrows. “So. Have a good night?”

“I slept quite well, yes.”

“Good, good,” Tony muttered, nodding.

“Also, there was a great deal of sex involved, which was marvelous.”

“Someone here is getting laid more than I am. This must be remedied,” Tony deadpanned, and finished off his coffee in one gulp.

“Find my father, and perhaps he’ll reward you with sexual favors,” Hel called in mocking sing-song from the other side of the room.

Tony sputtered a bit. “What?!”

“What? You obviously like men as well as women,” Hel said. “My father is, so some people have insisted on telling me even against my will, quite good-looking.”

The inventor shrugged. “I’m surrounded by good-looking people. You know this, obviously, given you apparently snagged Natasha, which, congrats, you’re braver than I am where she’s concerned.”

“My sexual organs being carried internally, rather than sticking out in a vulnerable fashion, has occasional perks,” the goddess offered. “They’re trickier to remove.”

“I can see that helping, yeah.” Tony sounded thoughtful.

Natasha nodded at Clint, who obediently elbowed Tony in the side.

“Ow! Hey, what the fuck, Clint?”

“Just following orders, Tinman.”

“You have seniority on her in S.H.I.E.L.D., man, c’mon.”

“I also carry my sexual organs externally just like almost any other man,” the archer intoned gravely.

Natasha kicked him in the shin almost affectionately.

Clint winced. “Ow.”

“Anyway, back to my point,” Tony began again. “I’m surrounded by attractive people. Super-heroes at home, models at events, hot scientists and Pepper at Stark Industries. I’ve got access to pretty people in excess.”

“He’s also capable of outwitting you,” Hel pointed out. “And he asked me not to meddle with you.”

“Bullshit!” Tony raised his right index finger. “I call bullshit.”

“It is not, Tony Stark. My father indeed requested that if I insisted on taking part in his imprisonment-”

“Why did you, by the-” Clint was stopped by Tony’s hand over his mouth.

“-that I should at least not meddle with the Avengers, for his claim on you all for his capture, but particularly you. He said that he had _plans_ for you.”

“You said he didn’t mention me.”

“He mentioned Iron Man. I only knew you were Iron Man after questioning my dear uncle after completing the binding portion of his imprisonment.”

“About that whole imprisonment-” Clint started.

“He tried to destroy Jotunnheim. Helheim, my kingdom, is located in Nifleheim which is the original homeland of the ice Jotunn. Jotunnheim itself was not always so ubiquitously arctic. It was their first major conquest, scattering other Jotunns throughout the rest of the nine realms,” Hel explained. “My _father_ killing several thousand ice Jotunn in his attempt to destroy that whole planet was an absolute political nightmare for me. The Jotunns still left in Nifleheim are very old, and much more powerful than their more conquest-minded kin who left for lands further from death and the silence that comes with it. They will not war again with _Asgard_ until Ragnarok, but I am rather closer to home and an easier target for some of their wrath in the interim. _It has not been pleasant negotiating with them_ ,” she all but snarled. Then she calmed, taking a deep breath. “However, the situation was smoothed over quite a bit by my taking part in his incarceration, and things have settled down enough for me to venture away from my lands, and leave Freja and Hecate to look over things until my return.”

“Who?” Clint asked. “Isn’t... Hecate’s not from your pantheon, I thought. I ran into her this one time we were sent to try and get Dr. Strange to help with-”

“She isn’t from my pantheon, yes, but she’s an old friend.” A low hum. “Such a pity she’s taken, actually.” She shot Natasha a thoughtful look.

In that moment, the assassin was glad that she had no idea what Hecate looked like, or she had a feeling the ensuing mental image would have been scorching, and taken her brain offline about as effectively as Hel’s mouth had done a few minutes before. She cleared her throat quietly. “She’s taken, though?”

“Yes, tragically. I’m not exactly _surprised_ that it took someone like her to inspire monogamous behavior in _Freja_ of all people, but let’s say that I’m sufficiently impressed by that feat, and the lady herself, to the point of occasional jealousy.”

Clint seemed to be lost in the images of his mind’s eye again. He, after all, _had_ seen Hecate, and seemed stuck on the idea of her, Natasha, and Hel, in a variety of positions and combinations.

Natasha didn’t really blame him.

Tony, by contrast, was still in disbelief over the Loki thing. “You’re saying he claimed rights to us, here, the Avengers, for catching him?”

“It’s a legitimate claim.”

“Even though he sort of intentionally let us catch him?”

Hel nodded. “Our laws don’t exactly exclude you all just because he did that part on purpose. You still beat him up quite impressively and send him limping back to Asgard in chains and a muzzle.”

“But you also said he didn’t make you exactly give your word.”

“I can choose whether or not to respect his claim. As such, I’ve disrespected his claim of the Avengers on the whole, but I plan to leave you yourself otherwise unmolested.”

“Instead you’ll be molesting Natasha?”

“He was right. I _do_ quite like her.”

Tony waved that off. “I don’t believe this shit.”

“Well, you shouldn’t. It was a lie,” Hel said casually.

The inventor stopped, and glared at her. “What?”

The goddess winked at him. “I wanted to see how you’d react.”

“She’s good,” Clint murmured. “Really good liar.”

“She learned from the best,” Tony groaned, rubbing his hands over his face. “It’s way too early in the morning for this.”

“It’s after 10:30,” Clint said.

“Exactly. Why am I awake before noon?”  
“Because you didn’t sleep,” Natasha said.

“Oh. Right. Because I was being brilliant, and Mar-Vell and I finally worked out where Loki will be tomorrow and how we can set about all sort of extracting him.”

Everyone stared at him for a long moment, with varying degrees of exasperation, surprise, and irritation.  
“Oh. Right,” Tony said. “Uh... one more cup of coffee, and I’ll be able to explain that, and we can get started on that whole trickster-retrieval thing, and hand him back over to Asgard, hopefully without starting any major intergalactic wars if we can help it.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the full extent and scale of Loki's plans comes to light, wagers are made and won, and the future glimpsed.

Of course there was going to wind up being a spanner thrown into the works.

“Why is she letting him out, Romanov?! There’s nothing in the plans about letting that crazy bastard _out_!”

“They have made the cell containing him irremovable. Too many wards on it, and they’re all hideously complicated, really to the point their mages were clearly just trying too hard and wanted to keep someone busy for an hour trying to open the thing as a delay tactic,” Hel barked over the comm. “And besides that, he has some things I require.”

“You were going to let him out anyway, weren’t you,” Tony growled.

“Perhaps.”

Soon after, the door to the chamber screeched open, despite the barricades Natasha had put down in the form of lock-down procedures, and Iron Man stepped in, looking moderately battered and extremely pissed when his faceplate snapped up. “Seriously, this is a terrible idea. Can’t we just rip the thing out? Destroy the wards?” He then shut the door and twisted the locking mechanisms back via the link he’d hacked into the local security system. “She can get her things back once the cage is in Asgard or something.”

Natasha took out two guns: one Kree, one of her own, and shot at the wards. The projectiles stopped an inch before hitting the wards and dropped like stones, while the energy from the Kree weapon was instantly absorbed. “No, Tony, we really can’t.”

“Shit. This is bad. Terrible. Awful.”

“You didn’t miss him?” Hel asked innocently, though her expression remained sternly focused as she moved her hands over the door to her father’s prison.

“How are the others with the diplomatic diversion?” Natasha asked, before Tony could design and launch a hurricane of snark in response to that.

“Thor and Bruce started wailing on people about five minutes ago when they still wouldn’t let us any further in than the main shipping bay. Our ship is fine. Barton found a perch up who the fuck even knows where and is keeping guard over it just in case our more magical exit strategy doesn’t go exactly as planned. Cap is keeping our two main juggernauts mostly in line and focused.”

Hel murmured something that made previously-invisible runes on the door flash bright white-gold, and reached for one of her knives, cutting her paler forearm and coating her fingertips with her own blood. “Stand back,” she warned lightly, then traced her fingers over two of the slow-fading runes, staining them lightly.

A low, grinding shudder went through the door and walls of the imprisoning box. It was the size of a small bank vault, with equally thick walls, mostly-embedded in the tangle of wards that Hel had found to be so annoying. Bolts slid audibly behind the door,  each one unlocking with a loud crack before the door itself swung open. From within came an eerie light and the smell of burning. Briefly, there was a flash of green and all the lights in the room went out for a few moments.

“ _Loki_ ,” Hel growled, low and warning.

After a pause, a rasping laugh met their ears, and the lights began to flicker back on a few at a time. “What a pleasant surprise,” Loki said, emerging from the smoke and fog of his prison. He looked thin, and harrowed, with dark circles around his eyes and a stiffness to his movements that suggested his incarceration had come with more unpleasant experience than the clean, industrial outline of his cage otherwise hinted. His poison-green eyes were bright with mischief and his grin had a manic edge. His gaze focused on the red-haired assassin first, where she stood a few feet behind his daughter. “Ah, as expected, Thor persuaded you to bring an entourage he considers capable of defeating me: excellent. I take it that all of the Avengers are here?”

Natasha felt a sudden sense of annoyed foreboding, and could tell that Tony shared it; although where the assassin was resigned to sitting back and waiting for Loki to unfurl his plot as the trickster was clearly dying to do, she was certain that Tony wouldn’t.

And she was right.

“You son of a bitch.”

“Ah. Tony Stark.” Catching sight of the inventor by the door, Loki took a full step beyond the threshold of his prison, ignoring the way Hel was glaring daggers at him as he came to a halt at her side. “I take it the rest of your cohorts are making distractions elsewhere?”

“Father,” Hel said, her voice chill as the grave.

He turned and met her gaze calmly. “You’re looking well. Peace treaties serving you well, I presume? Rest assured, I’m not planning to disturb them in the least. You’ll be quite absolved, given I’m about to save your life and gravely inconvenience you in one fell swoop. Your aid to be will be more than well-obfuscated.”

To the Avengers’ mild dismay, Hel’s metaphorical feathers unruffled slightly, albeit in a wary fashion. She grabbed him by the jaw sharply, tugging him just slightly closer. “Do you have _any_ idea how lucky you are that I love you?” she growled, sounding very nearly inhuman.

Loki half-smiled, very faintly. “I can hope so.”

She snorted at him and shook her head. “Why I let you live, I may never know.”

He gently tugged her vise-like grip gently, and held it between both of his for a moment when she let him go, then let two fingers trail down to where she bled, healing the small wound with a touch. “At least I entertain.”

Hel proceeded to call him something complicated-sounding in strange language, making him wince.

Loki then dipped one hand beneath the chest-piece of his armor, tugging out a thin cloth mask of purple-black, which he held out to his daughter. When she touched it, his grip didn’t loosen, and he warned, “Only if you will be rid of it.”

She glared at him. “Not your decision.”

“You have never needed a mask, let alone had any need to invest yourself so heavily in one. I need not let go.”

The goddess flinched slightly, but nodded, and the mask began to fall apart, thread by thread, between them, glowing eerily. “And my blade?”

“When I am free of this ship, you may have that as well.”

Hel tisked. “Of course. I should have expected no less.”

“If the love-in is over,” Tony barked. “We still have to get out of here alive without you in a box, Loki.”

Shooting Stark a look, Hel said something else in the same alien language as before; something which caused Loki to look momentarily taken aback and a little offended. She only grinned at him, just mockingly enough to chide him. “As though you weren’t thinking it.”

“I wasn’t,” he said flatly.

An explosion a bit too nearby caused the walls around them to rattle. A series of alarms began to go off throughout the whole of the ship. Hel, Tony and Natasha winced at sudden, loud noise over their comms.

“ _Mayday, Iron-buttocks, we’ve got problems down here!_ ” Clint shouted. “ _It’s not-_ ”

“ _THE CAPTAIN HAS BEEN CAPTURED,” Thor roared. “AND I CANNOT CONTAIN THE HULK WITHOUT HIS AID, AS HE IS HOSTILE TOWARDS ME._ ”

Then Clint again, “ _Yeah, that would explain a lo-HOLY SHIT!_ ”

Another series of jarring collision-related sounds shook the ship around them.

Loki, meanwhile, had stepped over to one of the computer consoles on the far wall, which had formerly been monitoring the security of his cage. “Hmm. Closed network, separate from the ship’s core mainframe. Stark, get over here, I know you’ve got a few keys to the mainframe; you wouldn’t be caught dead on this ship without them.”

Swearing under his breath, Tony strode over. “Fine, fine step aside and––oh.” He stared at the screen, eyes widening a little. “You really just need the keys.”

“Advanced civilization, need I remind you?”

“I get thrown off by the fact you’re all so fond of torchlight and I haven’t seen a single computer-like device anywhere in Asgard.”

“Our lives are less cluttered with such things than mortals such as yourself are prone to being, yes, and we have a smaller population. Also, many of them are thousands of years old. Can you imagine trying to persuade any one of them to, say, upgrade a system they’ve been using for over a century for it to suit marginally more entertaining purposes?”

“You could wow them.” Tony connected into the system from his suit and began loading the keys. “You’re a showman, after all.”

“Why would I waste my talents on such boring people?”

“To make them more interesting?”

Loki shook his head. “There is a level of dullness, and tastelessness that simply is not fixable.”

Briefly, Tony considered Justin Hammer. “You have a point. Also, we’re in the ship’s core network, now, and _whaaat the fuck are you doing?!_ ”

The trickster’s grin was pure mischief and not a little spite as he began sending out signals mimicking the distress beacons of a few Skrull vessels. “I’m starting an intergalactic war, darling. Care to watch?”

Tony went to raise a gauntlet, and found that he couldn’t move. “I hate you.”

“Ah, but you don’t.” Loki paused to pat his cheek with a patronizing air, the fingers of his other hand continuing to move across the touch-interface of the computer terminal. “Now, if you play nice, I will swear to you upon my life that yourself and all of your Avengers will survive this.”

Staring at some of Loki’s plans unfolding across the screen. “I’m torn between horrified, and grudgingly impressed. That said, I think we’d get out of here alive regardless, we’re a tough bunch.”

“If it were only the Skrulls you’d need worry about-”

“DAMMIT, FATHER! NOT _THEM_ , AGAIN!”

“-that might be true,” Loki concluded, smiling benignly in his daughter’s direction.

“What else––” Tony cut off, then, his eyes narrowing. “Oh. Oh, you asshole. You changed this ship’s beacon too, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t need to. They’re already trying to present themselves, and the rest of the cloaked armada they allowed you all to slip past, as the most impressive that their military has to offer, in order to meet Thanos,” Loki mused.

“What armada?” Natasha appeared at Loki’s shoulder from out of the shadows, followed closely by Hel.

Loki removed his hand from Tony’s face and summoned a holographic display of the ship and all that surrounded it for a considerable distance. He then tapped a few symbols near the corner of the display, and the formerly empty-looking region around the ship suddenly began to look much more speckled, as though suddenly splashed with glittering doom. “There’s only a few hundred of them, but at first glance they all may appear armed to the teeth. Whether they actually are depends on how very much they trust Thanos.”

“So they’re armed to the teeth,” Tony said flatly.

“This ship, by contrast, has most of its weaponry disabled by simple means of key mechanical components being conspicuously absent, as you may notice here.” Loki tapped another display, showing them a series of diagrams of the weapons systems and how conspicuously offline they all were.

“You said they let us slip by,” Natasha said slowly.

“I did.” Loki’s grin began to widen still further.

“And how did you know all of the weapons were offline?” the assassin asked.

“He told them to do it,” Hel sighed.

“You know me so well,” the trickster confirmed.

“The cage was designed to allow some communication with him, and some control over the conditions within,” the goddess explained quickly. “They must have thought you had something useful you might offer in exchange for not being tortured any more so than you were already getting.”

“Of course. You Avengers may be interested to know that the collective bounties on all of your heads, particularly your Hulk, are worth just slightly more than mine.”

“But they weren’t going to let you free, of course,” Tony sighed.

“Ah, but they believed that I thought they would. Marvelous how grand they can be at lying to themselves when they think they have a liar cornered and sufficiently beaten,” Loki mused.

Tony smirked a bit despite himself. “It’s a boon sometimes, yeah.”

The trickster shot him a curious look briefly, before returning his attention to the screen. “I’ve found Barton. He’s in a cell beside your Captain. Not very high security, of course. They’re not worth as much as-”

A guttural roar burst out, audible even through several walls separating sections of the ship. There followed another series of crashing sounds.

“The crew here are all convicts or those considered ‘too impure’ to be worth keeping closely protected by those higher up the caste in Kree society,” Loki pointed out. “They, along with myself and the rest of the ship, were initially to serve the single purpose of keeping all of their treasures together on a particularly sturdy, mostly-harmless vessel, until arrival at our final destination.

“They didn’t think you’d get out? Really?” Hel scoffed.

“You underestimate how much pain I am capable of taking these days,” Loki murmured dully. “Shall I drop the glamours for you?”

“This is you glamoured up?” Tony asked.

“And you’re hungover. Thanks for your concern,” the trickster riposted. Then the screen lit up in shades of poisonous yellow and black. “Ah, excellent. Right on time.”

“Dare I ask whose distress beacons from the Skrulls you’re using?” Tony asked.

“Oh. Just the royal family’s.”

“When did you find time to kidnap any of their royal family?” Hel asked, sounding genuinely impressed this time.

“I didn’t. She eloped with her lover to another galactic sector. I just offered to cover her tracks, and may have offended the Kree on my way out while also planting some specific paranoid ideas in their heads, shortly before making an appearance in Midgard again in... was it Germany we first met?” He aimed the question at Tony.

“In person? Yeah, that was Germany,” the inventor murmured. “I knew your invasion looked a bit shabby. I mean, come on, keeping the portal on earth? No dramatic reveal once the army was already there? That would’ve been way better than opening the door for them over New York. Tiny door, by the way: nice choice. Any wider and we might’ve run into real problems with their numbers.”

“So you mentioned after pointing out how much more use the iridium could have been put to, I believe,” Loki mused.

“What else did you two discuss in that interview?” Natasha asked blithely.

“Insults, mostly,” Tony admitted. “Really, terrifyingly clever insults.”

“As well as your troubled interpersonal relationships,” Loki added.

“And your daddy issues,” the inventor recounted.

“Your own similar issues speak loudly enough to go without saying, of course,” the trickster drawled. “I hardly need bring them up at all.”

“Okay, then, Loki,” Tony said sharply. “Let’s see your offer of us all getting out alive, and I’ll raise you an additional ‘all of us Avengers getting back to earth in one piece’ before I consider accepting.”

“I hardly need your aid.”

“And I don’t need to move much to make things difficult for you.”

An icon mimicking Iron Man’s mask appeared suddenly on the display. JARVIS’ voice emerged from the terminal, saying, “Recording completed. Plotting courses for reversal and general havoc-wreaking upon all commands entered within the past half hour.”

Loki’s expression froze and he shot the mad inventor a sidelong glance. “You cannot stop this.”

“You sure about that?” Tony’s grin was full of teeth and malice, and something deeper: a thrill of adrenaline, and challenge. _I dare you. Come on, show your teeth._

The trickster considered, eyes glittering with cold cunning almost more than mischief now. He began to smirk back. “Then I raise my own price. You play along, you and yours make no attempts to hold or capture my person once all is said and done, and the removal of all data collected by S.H.I.E.L.D. scientists about my person. I could care less what personal information they have collected from Thor, but I have some other reservations, and they can be such an inconvenience when left to develop weaponry based on the Destroyer, my scepter, and the like.”

“Tony,” Natasha warned.

“Done,” the inventor said, magnanimously. “You gonna let me offer to shake on it, or keep me frozen like a jackass?”

“I was under the impression you _are_ a jackass,” Loki said, but released him.

Tony proffered one gauntleted hand.

Loki shook it. “Let’s begin.”

Chaos, rather predictably, ensued.

 

~~

 

In the end, the hardest part was catching the Hulk.

Even Loki didn’t entirely like his prospects, there.

Tony half-suspected that was why he’d made sure Thor was the one responsible for keeping the Hulk in close enough range for Hel to get a fix on.

“How much time until the Skrulls get here?”

“If you keep distracting me, they’ll never get close enough into the armada for it to matter,” Loki snarled, eyes aglow as power thrummed up through his blood and out into the spell his fingers were still busy weaving.

“You still didn’t explain how you’re going to keep three armadas from noticing their mutual convergence until-” Hel began.

“Watch and learn, darling. Also, please be a dear and knock Dr. Banner back to his senses: pull out his soul briefly, if you have to. He’s disturbing my concentration.”

Another roar shook the floor beneath them.

“He’s under us,” Natasha said. “That’s bad.”

“I think we’re all aware of that, Agent Romanov. Hel, if you would?”

“Stop distracting me, father. His soul is still–– _highly_ unusual.”

The trickster exhaled a hissing breath through his teeth. “Of fucking course.” He closed his eyes. “Best hurry this along then.” Reaching out all around himself, he felt the ship, and every single living body within it. Stretching further was harder, aided by the spell as he’d woven it so far, until he could sense all of the Kree armada––but that wouldn’t be enough. No, this cloaking spell would have to be _contagious_ , so that the first information to reach the systems of Thanos’ armada would be riddled with the same selective blindness, infected by it. Loki reached out a little further, then _twisted_.

It came with a sharp, soul-deep pain, blackness creeping in at the edges of his vision, but her held, and twisted further, wove further, until it completed with a snapping rush of energy, all at once. Then it was free of his fingers, and without its support, the dark crashed in.

The floor shuddered. Another few blasts struck the ship.

“HOLY SHIT!”

A roar again from the Hulk, close this time. The sound of tearing metal reached them from underfoot.

Loki ignored it. He was gone, and present, but pulled so far back-

“Got you, you great twisted-up bastard,” Hel snapped, and pulled her own spell sharply like a fisherman’s net.

Another roar, more pained this time. Then it cut off abruptly and there was a juddering crash.

A long silence followed.

“Where did Loki go?”

Tony made a noise like a snarl. “That son of a bitch, I’ll-”

“He’s on the floor,” Hel panted. “They really must’ve done a number on him in that cage, I think.”

The inventor looked over more closely then, and found that she was right. “He, uh, does seem to be covered in a lot of dried blood suddenly, yeah,” Tony said, his voice carefully even as he stepped closer to the downed god of mischief. “As an aside, why is he blue?” Then he glanced up and realized the expression on the goddess’ face was far too open: concern, betrayal, wonder, and shock. “He’s not supposed to be?”

A moment later, Hel knelt by her father’s side, her hands settling over him. “He is Jotunn. This form makes him more resistant to damage, and requires less energy to upkeep, given that he does not require body heat.” She shut her eyes, fingers of one hand smoothing down his back as the other hand settled on his brow.

“He’s really hurt, then.”

“He would not feign this. Not where I could see,” Hel murmured.

Tony raised an eyebrow. “You’ve never seen him like this.”

She shook her head. “No. We did not know he was Jotunn until quite recently. He is a shape-shifter by birth, and his expectations tend to dictate his appearance and physical responses while he is conscious. It hid this from us longer than any magic of Odin’s ever could.” Her eyes fell open. “He will wake up in a few minutes. Go collect your friend Dr. Banner. I have returned his soul to him, and he is dreaming.”

Tony stepped away, but before stepping out into the hall he glanced back.

Hel had taken one of her father’s hands in hers: slightly lighter than her less pale half, with far more sparse markings. Her expression was carefully masked again, as her fingers trailed over Loki’s now-cold skin curiously, almost hesitantly.

Then the inventor left them both alone.

 

~~

 

When he did wake, Loki sat up sharply, power gathering to him rapidly, ready to lash out even before his senses fully returned.

“ _Papa_ ,” Hel said softly, touching his shoulder.

He relaxed instinctively letting his head hang forward slightly, just for a moment, as he took a deep breath and scanned the room. “The others?”

“Will be here in another minute or so. They are watching your machinations unfold on the larger terminal out there.”

The trickster nodded, sitting up further and getting his feet under him. He let his daughter pull him to his feet and realized that she was looking at him very shrewdly, and raised a brow in silent question.

“You drained yourself more than I had expected you would allow yourself.”

Understanding lit his expression for a moment. “I would have shown you, had you asked it of me.”

She nodded. “I know. I was afraid to.”

Loki pulled her to his chest, arms loose around her as though her expected she might want to resist, but she didn’t, and rested her brow atop his shoulder. “I notice I’m covered in less dried blood, and far stronger than I should be, by rights. Thank you.”

Hel nodded a little. “It was all quite easy once I nicked my dagger back.” She then chuckled when he swore at her affectionately.

Alerts appeared on the display panels of the computer terminal on the far wall, and soon the whole ship shook around them.

“I cannot get them home myself, or I would have delivered us all by now,” Hel said quietly, lifting her head to meet his stare. “I am not so used to wandering great distances as you. Are you well enough to guide and aid me?”

“Until I am dead, I will aid you whenever you may require.”

“And make a grand mess in the process,” she teased lightly.

“Yes, but mostly for others to deal with.”

“Please don’t put me in the middle of another war of vengeance, father.”

He grimaced a little. “I was––not altogether myself. And I am sorry. I have done my best to smooth that over.”

“I did notice.” She prodded his chest sharply. “But if this happens again, I’m not letting you back out. Not until your debts are paid in the slower, more tedious and legal ways.”

“I would expect no less.”

They parted not long before the Avengers rushed in.

“Shit is about to go down,” Clint declared. “The Skrulls just came out of nowhere, and they’re attacking Thanos and the Kree both! I swear, it’s every Skrull ship in existence out there, all at once, and holy shit it’s-”

The ship was rocked by an explosive strike to its port-side.

“Chaos?” Loki suggested, smiling brightly.

“You don’t have to look so cheerful about it,” Steve sighed.

“Oh, but I do. Particularly because I have just a little more business to attend to before all is said and done.” He strode past them all and down the hall a ways.

“What is he doing?” Natasha asked the goddess.

“I have no idea,” Hel sighed.

Loki returned with a suspicious-looking container, still grinning madly. “Did Odin happen to mention anything else the Kree might have recently stolen?”

Thor looked suddenly alarmed. “Loki, tell me that is not-”

“Oh take it easy, Thor. It’s not the casket. I’ve hidden that away somewhere far safer, if you must know. This was an idea I planted for them earlier, a weapon they might use should Thanos turn against them. The dream-walking manipulations required to bring it onto this vessel was far harder, but well worth it.”

“Then what-”

Loki plucked a small green stone from the box; it was bright and with an aura about it that could only be described as an extreme thirst. “Something far smaller and more potent, plucked from a gauntlet Thanos is surely familiar with.”

“ _Father,_ ” Hel warned.

Loki grinned widely. “Many thanks for your healing, my dear. I shall need it. Now, I’ll only be a moment.” Then he vanished.

Swearing ensued, mostly from Hel, Tony, and Clint.

“Now what?” Steve asked, clearly disgruntled.

“We wait,” the goddess said. “He cannot leave us here, having given his word to get all of you back to Midgard. He knows I require his aid for such long-distance travel with so many additional bodies, one of whom isn’t even conscious.” She jerked her chin toward Bruce Banner, currently held in a fireman’s-carry over Steve’s shoulder.

“Does that complicate things somehow?” Tony asked.

“Yes, actually.”

“Care to explain how?”

“Not at present. Ask my father sometime.”

“I somehow doubt he’ll be sticking around long once we’re back on earth.”

“You may be surprised, then,” Hel said, smirking. “His deal with you would make your tower a fairly safe place to recover for a time, given your promise not to capture him.”

“Excuse me, what?” Clint snapped.

“It was an executive decision,” Tony said quickly. “And it’s probably the only reason he’ll be coming back instead of leaving us to steer this ship out of the middle of this-” Another blast shook the ship around them. “-clusterfuck of intergalactic warfare.”

“We’ll need to discuss your executive decision-making after all this is over, Tony,” Steve said gravely.

The inventor winced a little. “Fine. Fine. Whatever.”

“No, this isn’t fucking fine!” Clint shouted. “We’re just going to let this lunatic-”

A loud crack behind him cut the archer off, as the lunatic in question reappeared, looking scorched and manic and incredibly pleased with himself.

Natasha suddenly exclaimed something startled-sounding in Russian aimed very clearly at someone or something other than Loki.

The others turned and stared.

In their midst, where there had been but thin air a moment before, stood an elegant lady in loose, plain black robes. Her eyes were black from lid to lid, with strange depth to them, as though they were windows through which one could peer at distant galaxies being slowly swallowed by black holes at their centers. She smiled benignly and held her hand out toward Loki.

The others remained silent as the trickster approached her, and held out the green Infinity Gem, bowing slightly at the waist. “He’s all yours, my lady. He and all of the others herein.”

She touched two fingers to the stone, which flashed bright and made a sound like water hitting white-hot metal, then slowly darkened almost to black as she drained it. Then she picked it up from Loki’s palm and nodded to him, touching it to her lips briefly before her hand and face both appeared to lose all flesh and instead display only skull and delicate finger-bones. Soon after, the rest of her vanished too.

“What the fuck just happened?” Clint squeaked.

“She will return the gem to the gauntlet in Odin’s vault, as per our agreement. For some reason, she has been set against trusting me with its keeping any further,” Loki said lightly. “Thanos is dead and will not be revived again. He has gone to his lady for good this time.” He rolled his shoulders and offered them all a bright and cheerful smile that contrasted oddly with all of the ash, blood, and other evidence of violence covering his person. “Well, I’m fairly content with how that turned out. Shall we, Hel?” He proffered a hand.

Hel touched her fingers to his upturned palm, her eyes beginning to glow. “Yes.”

“Wait just a-” Clint started, cut off when an eerie violet light engulfed them, and they were carried away by it: out of the air and into something else far less comfortable for a few too-long minutes. Whirling void, crooked and almost drunken tumbling through it, along a jagged, narrow path only Loki seemed capable of tracing. They hurtled along it sickeningly fast, for what felt like an eternity, before juddering to something like a halt, followed by a whirling, spinning sensation.

Then they reappeared, in the middle of Tony Stark’s repaired and only slightly remodeled penthouse.

Clint made a decidedly nauseated noise, stumbling a bit. “-never mind. That can... can wait. Fuckin’holyshiteurgh.” He stumbled sideways a bit further until he found a chair to collapse in with a groan.

Tony shook it off, literally shaking his head like a dog trying to dry off, and exhaled a bit shakily. “Wow, what a trip.” He was glad to have the suit to stabilize him as the dizziness and nausea abated.

Natasha wondered when exactly she’d reached out and grabbed Hel’s forearm for support. She was very still, and very pale, and said nothing, though when the goddess lowered her hand from Loki’s and moved closer, the assassin let herself be guided into a loose embrace. She didn’t need to be held up, but Hel was surprisingly comfortable to lean against, despite her armor’s less-than-welcoming appearance.

“Is everyone alright?” Steve asked, openly concerned.

Bruce groaned vaguely. “What the shit was that?”

“When did you wake up, buddy?” Tony asked.

“Just before the spinning stopped. Seriously, that was fucking horrible.”

“That was us coming home,” Steve said.

“Not the ship?” the chemist asked.

“Oh, I wish it’d just been the ship,” Clint almost whimpered. “I don’t get motion-sick. I know I don’t. That shit was fucked up.”

Bruce groaned again, with exasperation this time. “Loki’s here, isn’t he?”

“Yes, and I’d prefer to remain unbattered for the nonce, if you’d be so kind,” the trickster responded, drifting toward the bar. “Mr. Stark, I believe you owe me a drink.” He waved a hand over himself, dispelling the remaining gore, ash, and other battle-related grit from about his person.

“God, please tell me that wasn’t part of your deal with the devil,” the archer snapped, pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes.

“Not this time, no,” Tony responded. “Give me a few minutes, sweetcheeks, and I’ll slip into something more comfortable.” He strolled out into the hall and descended the short flight of stairs down to his private lab to get out of his armor.

Loki settled back on a bar stool, leaning back against the bar-top comfortably as the rest of the Avengers stared at him in open suspicion save Natasha, who was distracted a bit by Hel nuzzling her ear, which the trickster chose to ignore. “What? I’m done for now.”

“I wish I could believe that,” Steve said flatly.

“You can put me down, you know,” Bruce cut in.

“Oh, sorry.” He began to lower the chemist back to his feet.

By the time Tony returned to the penthouse, barefoot and dressed in merely jeans and a t-shirt because he had no fucks left to give, Bruce was fully upright and dusting himself off without support from the super-soldier. He swayed only a little.

“You should return to Asgard, Loki,” Thor rumbled.

“I’d like to see you try and make me, brother dear. I’m hardly inclined to be imprisoned again.”

“If we plead your case before father-”

“You have _already pled my case_ , Thor,” Loki snarled. “You and Frigga both, and your words went unheard. I needed to be made an example of to keep what remains of the peace, as you well know. For Hel’s sake, and purposes of my own, I did allow it, but that is done, and I am not inclined to play that particular game yet again for some ridiculous illusions you have of reconciliation between us, or between myself and Odin.”

“I think you’re already half-reconciled with Thor here anyway, to judge my how relatively uninjured he is this time. You took way more of a beating than he did,” Tony mused, as he stepped behind the bar. “Any preference for liquor?”

The trickster shot him a warning glare that contrasted sharply with how light his voice was as he responded, “I’m not altogether familiar with most alcoholic drinks on this planet younger than the renaissance. Surprise me.”

“Anyone else want anything while I’m back here?”

“Whiskey. One bottle,” Clint said sharply.

“Vodka martini,” Natasha called, her eyes half-shut.

“Whatever you may recommend, I shall have one,” Hel said.

Thor hissed through gritted teeth, “Anthony Stark, you are not helping.”

“I _am_ helping. I’m _helping keep my damn house intact_ , okay? You’re under my roof, and you’re sort of an Avenger. Your brother struck a deal with said Avengers that we wouldn’t try to capture him after this whole mess. That said, after the next mess, he’s fair game, and you can kick his ass then,” Tony said sharply. “Unless you’d like to renege your whole ‘being one of us’ thing, which would really suck, because I’d have to kick you out of my house.” He shot Thor a bland look. “Now, do you want a drink?”

The thunderer looked murderous, but nodded. “I believe I shall require one.”

“Good.” Tony nodded at him, and began digging through his liquor cabinet.

“How’d I wind up the unconscious half-dressed damsel, exactly?” Bruce asked, stepping behind the bar to tap out a request into Tony’s highly specialized, automated espresso machine.

“I had to temporarily remove your soul,” Hel explained. “It caused your transformation to abruptly reverse itself in such a fashion that you were knocked out.”

“Well... I’m really, really glad I don’t remember that,” the chemist muttered.

“It was the only way we were going to be able to get you outta there,” Tony said.

“I get that. Really, I do,” Bruce responded, smiling soft and self-deprecating.

Within another twenty minutes, everyone had their drinks and some of the adrenaline was winding down. Clint vanished off somewhere with his bottle of whiskey not too long after. Hel and Natasha were the next to vanish, to no one’s surprise; although none of them actually saw the pair leave. Steve and Bruce left only a few minutes later, claiming they were in dire need of at least twelve pizzas. They managed to drag Thor with them, with an effort, after Tony laced the thunderer’s third cocktail with something slightly experimental he’d found in S.H.I.E.L.D.’s medical files relating to him. It was listed as a possible sedative, and it looked to be having a bit of an effect as the thunder god left them looking fairly docile and a bit confused, but quite raucously content with the idea of pizza.

That left Tony alone with the god of mischief and a now half-empty bottle of fine scotch. “So,” he said. “You’re an ass.”

“You are hardly the first to tell me so,” Loki responded.

“I wouldn’t imagine so. You’ve got a real way with people.”

“The same could be said of you, I’m sure.”

Tony shot the trickster a look, slightly curious and a little heated. “If I were to, say, proposition you, though, I don’t think you’d exactly throw me out the window or anything.”

“Not this time,” Loki acknowledged, watching the inventor step back around to the front of the bar, halting right in front of him. “I’d be inclined to take you apart until you forgot your own name, actually.”

“Promises, promises.”

The trickster set aside his empty glass and leaned forward a bit into Tony’s space. “Is that a challenge, Mr. Stark?”

“Yeah. I want to see how much further you can impress me.”

Loki grinned. “That could take a very long time. I have many skills.”

“We’d better get started, then.” He moved closer still, now standing between Loki’s legs. He settled his hands on the bar-top on either side of Loki, smirking when the trickster leaned in just as he did, and they met in the middle, in a kiss full of fire and quickly re-kindled adrenaline, and teeth.

Tony pressed closer bodily, trapping Loki between himself and the bar; although he found, with a slight thrill, that he felt no more in control for it––not with the trickster’s skilled hands moving over him: one sliding under his shirt to trail up his spine, the other tangling long fingers in his hair and gripping just tight enough to make his breath catch, forcing his head to tilt further back so that Loki’s tongue could explore still deeper. With a low moan, the inventor teased in return, his hands under Loki’s coat, gripping the trickster’s ass through those leather pants, and finding it an even more firm and pleasant handful than he’d thought.

Then Loki rolled his hips, and Tony lost track of coherent thought for a long moment because _holy shit_. And somehow, with that same motion, the trickster had abandoned the barstool and gotten to his feet, which gave him leverage to pivot them so that he pushed Tony hard back against the bar, making the inventor gasp into his mouth.

“You’re quite good, Tony.”

“Same to you. Care to be rid of the armor, though? It’s in my way.”

Loki chuckled softly. “I could say the same of your clothing.” He then reached down and stroked the inventor’s half-hard cock through his jeans, with interest.

Tony groaned despite himself, getting fully hard very fast. “Yeah, but I’ve got a lot less on than you do,” he panted.

“Very true.”

A loud knock on the door caused them both to pause, glaring in the direction of the sound.

“I say we make a strategic retreat. Bedroom is over there.” Tony pointed.

“Agreed,” Loki purred, and vanished them both, though he left his armor and clothes, as well at Tony’s clothing, behind, where it scattered across two barstools and the floor.

The knock came again, and again got no answer.

“Tony, are you-” Clint stopped and glanced at the pile of discarded clothing and armor, then looked up at the sound of a low thud and a moan from the direct of Tony’s bedroom. He grimaced. “Of course. Fuckin’ christ. Now I owe Natasha fifty bucks.” He stepped in only long enough to set the half-empty bottle of whiskey on the bar before stalking back out, only weaving a little, and slammed the door shut behind him.

 

~~

 

Natasha awoke tangled up naked with a goddess for the second time in her life and found that it was just as enjoyable as before. As before, Hel was quite drained from over-exertion in the magic department, and slept very deeply.

For a few minutes, the assassin merely enjoyed the view, after adjusting a setting above her headboard which let in some early morning light through the blinds: just enough to add thin stripes of gold sunlight along their skin. The sheets had shifted down to their hips at some point in the night. Natasha gently traced over Hel’s markings on her darker side with just her fingertips. When Hel stirred awake, the assassin’s touch did not still.

“What are you doing?” Hel muttered, without opening her eyes.

“Petting you. You’re too lovely not to.”

The goddess’ eyes fell open, a half-mocking smirk tugging at her lips as she shot Natasha an amused look. “There are many who would not think so.”

“There does always seem to be an excess of fools in the universe. Why is that?”

Hel huffed a quiet laugh. “Not even gods have worked out that particular problem.”

“Fools have their moments.”

“My father has said that about Thor, please don’t mention it here.”

Natasha smirked a little. “I suppose I’ll have to distract you.”

“Hmm, yes, you’re marvelously distracting.” She slid down a bit and nuzzled at the assassin’s breasts for emphasis. “Ah, yes. What were we talking about?”  
“Most people are fools, but it seems tolerable enough to me so long as there are exceptions, and some of them are lovely as you–– _bozhe moi_ , keep doing that.”

“I don’t exactly plan to stop.” She leaned up, then, and caught a brief kiss.

“You have a spell against morning breath. That is the only explanation for why you taste like lavender,” Natasha giggled.

“Of course. I’m a mage of many talents.”

“Yes, you are.”

Nuzzling at the assassin’s neck, Hel murmured, “I’d like to see more of you, I think, but I believe we both have numerous inconvenient duties to consider.”

“You have a plan then,” Natasha teased, then whimpered as another finger was added to the two already driving her to distraction.

“I have a plan.” She nipped at Natasha’s lower lip.

“I’ll be quite willing to listen once you finish making me come.”

“Demanding.”

“You like it.”

Hel grinned. “I do.” She then vanished most of the way beneath the sheet, which Natasha promptly kicked away. “Like to watch?”

“I do. Now, I believe you were–– _oh_.” Natasha’s hips bucked a little, involuntarily, as the goddess’ lips and tongue overwhelmed her. “Oh _yes_ , harder––ah!” It didn’t take long before her pleasure peaked and she gave low cry, fingers tight in Hel’s hair and the sheets both. “You are _good_.”

“As are you,” Hel responded, moving up and resting lightly atop the smaller woman. “As such, you may be interested in this.” She pulled something from thin air: a small, practical dagger blade with an intricately etched sheath. “This was up my father’s sleeve until recent, and I have brought almost all of my magic out of it and back into myself, save that I replaced some of it. It’s now a token with its roots in Helheim.”

Natasha’s eyes widened a little. “How... exactly...”

“I can teach you a simple spell to activate it, and another for return to the place you left, or to another place I can alter the spell so that it recognized it as ‘safe’ if you have such a location.” She half-smiled thoughtfully. “It can bring you to my home, should you wish. Perhaps simply if you need merely escape an inconvenient death, it can also serve that purpose. I would not keep you in the land of the dead before your time.”

Gently, Natasha curled her fingers around Hel’s on the blade. “That does take care of the distance factor, I suppose.”

“If you like. Should your interests change, however, you may still rely upon Helheim as a sanctuary, should you require it. I will renew the spell as often as you may require.”

“You hardly know me,” the assassin murmured. “All that I do here, all of the people that I occasionally–– _persuade_ ––”

“I’m a goddess, Natasha, and a practical one. Presently we are lovers rather than being in love, and I am content to maintain merely that, unless something changes. I do not need your loyal exclusivity, or anything of the sort. I merely wish to have you, for a time, or several times, and I’m fond of you.” She trailed the fingers of her dry hand down the assassin’s cheek. “Consider me a more active patron than the Mistress so fond of us both. If more than that should develop, perhaps things may change, but it is clear to me how important your humanity is to you, and your connections and actions here that keep you anchored and sharp and interesting mean more to you than love. I feel similarly about my own duties as a guardian, and in all the actions I take to care for my subjects.”

Natasha relaxed slowly. “I got that impression, yes.” She took a breath. “Do you know what she told me?”

Hel shook her head.

“It was when I was first injected with the serum––she told me, ‘ _not forever_.’”

The goddess hummed, but nodded, understanding. “Me too. When I was chosen for my duties. She always seems inclined to remind all she favors that she is far more endless than they will ever be.”

“ _Memento mori_.”

Hel smiled a little. “Keeps us a bit humble, yes. Perhaps she forgot to tell Thanos.”

“No wonder she applies the policy even to mere favorites now, as well as goddesses.”

They both laughed a little, curling close.

“There is one place I consider safe,” Natasha whispered.

Hel’s eyebrows raised. “Oh?”

“Yes.” The assassin found herself smiling widely despite herself. “Aside from your home, that is.”

Helplessly, the goddess kissed her again.

 

~~

 

In retrospect, after the events of the previous night, including several rounds of slightly-magic-enhanced sex with a moderately insatiable god of mischief, Tony supposed that on the list of things he might have expected to wake up to the next morning, waking to a thorough, lazy morning fucking from Loki should’ve been on the list.

Thankfully, after rounds one, three, four, and seven from the previous night, and a bit of Loki using magic to speed up the inventor’s recovery time like the beautiful bastard he was, both residual soreness and adjustment-time were minimal. That said, Loki was still just a bit more gifted than Tony himself, and that was a lot to wake up to in his ass, first thing in the morning. If only he weren’t so damned _good_ at this, Tony might even be able to get properly annoyed.

Instead, he was arching into it and making utterly indecent noises as he woke up far more quickly than he usually ever managed without caffeine or a life-and-death situation involved.

Then again, Loki was the one fucking him, so the possibility of getting killed or maimed might, in theory, still be a factor.

Not that Tony really cared. “Fuckin’ god, Loki.”

“Yes, I am.” He sounded far too smug, but a little breathless. “You’re so marvelously pliant this morning.”

“That’s because I was asleep a minute ago,” Tony groaned. “N-no, that does not mean slow or stop––do _not_ stop, you absolute bastard!”

Loki hummed, low and amused. “Then how do you want it, Tony?”

“Fuck. You haven’t worked that out yet?” His head dropped back onto the pillow as Loki slowed further, driving him increasingly mad. “Hard and properly, you fucker, unless you want me to show you again.”

“Perhaps later, if you’re sufficiently persuasive,” Loki purred, and picked up the pace with increased force until the inventor beneath him was reduced to incoherent and breathless sounds. Enjoying him thoroughly, the trickster held out until Tony was boneless and gripping the sheets hard enough to tear them before reaching down and taking the inventor’s cock in hand, stroking fast and a little rough. “Now, Tony,” he growled, then made an inchoate sound of his own as Tony tightened around him, coming hard and taking Loki over the edge with him.

It took them a few minutes to regain anything like coherent thought.

“Fuck,” Tony groaned. “I’m starting to think you like me or something.”

“You have a number of qualities I find appreciable.”

“Aside from the spectacular sex?”

“Admittedly, the sex is _good_ ,” the trickster all but purred. “There are other qualities as well, or we wouldn’t have even gotten to that.”

“I know my ego doesn’t exactly need stroking, but given your reputation and how long you’ve been at this, it’s feeling pretty well-stroked right now.”

Loki chuckled softly, and pulled away enough to clean them up casually with magic and settle back on the bed.

Tony really did appreciate not having to move in order to feel less sticky and come-covered. It was a beautiful thing. He did shift a bit, rolling onto his back and getting comfortable before he asked, “How long are you planning to abuse our hospitality, then?”

“Until my magic has fully recovered at least, which may take perhaps a week. Or until driving you all insane grows boring. Whichever comes first.”

“You’ll have trouble driving them crazy. They’re already there.”

“Fair point.”

“Think Hel will stick around about that long?”

“No, she is very passionate about her duties. She will not remain apart from them much longer, I do not think.”

“If I have to deal with a slightly sulky and homicidal Natasha, I’m using you as a meat-shield,” Tony said gravely.

“You underestimate them both, I think.”

“For once, I kinda hope so.” He shot Loki a look. “Shower and then breakfast?”

“Or breakfast, followed by you fucking me in your shower.”

“You’ve persuaded me. JARVIS! Is Steve making breakfast yet?”

“He is,” the AI responded.

“Make sure he has enough for another Asgardian place-setting.”

“Yes, sir.”

Loki appeared amused. “Your construct has a slightly familiar voice.”

Tony groaned, rubbing his hands over his face. “I know, Hel told me. She keeps just sitting around conversing with like most people converse with Pepper. I think he’s going to miss her, and I’m going to have to start making small-talk with him to keep him from sulking.” He frowned when the trickster laughed at him, and tossed a pillow at him.

Deflecting it, Loki offered him a smirk. “I suppose they would prefer us both clothed.”

“Yeah.” Tony began to grin. “Hey. I’ve got an idea about that, if you want to make them squirm a bit.”

“I’m listening.”

 

~~

 

As soon as they walked in, Tony looking perfectly normal save all the marks on his neck and Loki wearing well-tailored, but not overly tight, black jeans and Tony’s Black Sabbath t-shirt, Clint Barton’s forehead hit the table of the breakfast nook with a loud thunk, and he swore.

Bruce elbowed the archer. “Looks like you owe Natasha fifty.”

“I know! I know! I transferred it to her account last night.”

“If I find out you were in the ventilation system again, Barton, I swear I will remodel all of it according to Peter’s Evil Overlord List,” Tony said sharply.

“I put the rest of the whiskey back at your bar. It’s sooo not my fault your clothes and his armor were scattered everywhere,” the archer shot back.

“I knew you did that on purpose,” Tony muttered.

“Shh, just enjoy the outrage,” Loki soothed.

“His face is turning some pretty interesting colors, admittedly.”

Bruce, looking thoroughly zen with his morning cup of tea, just shook his head at them, looking quietly amused.

Thor chose that moment to walk in with a slightly oversized mug of coffee, looking a little hungover. “Man of Iron, I strongly suspect that you did something to my drinks last night.”

“Only one of ‘em.”

The thunderer then looked his brother over and muttered a curse. “Now I owe Hel a boon. That never has boded me well.”

Loki looked surprised and a little chagrinned, but only briefly before smugness set back in. “One day, you will learn not to make wagers with her.”

“Where is she, by the way?” Tony asked.

“I believe she has not yet awoken.” He cleared his throat. “At least, she has not yet emerged from her quarters.”

“I take it they sound awake?” the inventor asked, smirking.

Thor grimaced a little. “Quite.” He then lumbered over to the table with the others.

Loki settled opposite him, with Tony between himself and Barton, as Steve finally looked up from his cookery and nearly dropped a platter of bacon as he too noticed how Loki was dressed, how Tony was marked up in the neck region, and how both of them had sex-mussed hair.

“Speaking of interesting colors,” the trickster mused.

Tony was grinning wide and shameless. “Totally worth it, right?”

“Absolutely, I must admit.” He offered the inventor a heated, conspiratorial look.

For his part, Tony wondered exactly what he’d gotten into, keeping up this game of flirtation and sexual tension and banter with the god of mischief beyond the single night of _survived-near-death_ and _your-brilliance-is-frustrating_ angry-sex. He wanted to keep playing this game, despite the risks; he had a feeling it would be a hell of a ride.

“Please tell me you’ve showered,” Clint sighed. “If you haven’t, please lie.”

“I’m perfectly clean, thank you,” Tony snorted.

“I used my tongue to be certain, rest assured,” Loki deadpanned.

The archer made a sputtering, choking sort of noise.

 

~~

 

“I can’t work out one thing,” Hel mused, watching the assassin don sufficient clothing to support a venture to the kitchen for breakfast.

“Oh?”

“You and Steve Rogers, I can understand, insofar as my trouble seeing any glimpse of where either of your stories end. Why Stark? He’s brilliant, and impressive in action with the Avengers, but he is only human.”

Natasha hummed, thinking it over for a while. “Mostly human. He made a few minor alterations, but he opted out of most of the superhuman add-on packages and wrote a few of his own modifications. So far as I know, though, none of those affect his mortality.”

Hel shook his head. “His ending is harder for me to see than even my father.”

A long pause followed.

Slowly, Natasha looked away from fixing her hair in the mirror and met Hel’s gaze. It was clear enough they had both just thought of the same possibility. The same horrifying and absurd, yet strangely believable possibility. “You don’t think-”

“No,” they both said in quiet unison.

“Surely not,” Hel added, then looked a bit thoughtful. “Unless father stole an apple for him from Asgard, but that––that would––”

They continued to stare at each other for a few long moments before they both burst into a fit of giggles. Hel nearly fell off the bed.

“Wager on it?” Natasha offered. “Would you bet against them and the apple?”

The goddess considered, snapping her fingers and summoning the same casual-wear Natasha recalled from before. Her eyes went distant and almost glassy for a moment, then cleared. Nonchalant as you please, she said, “No. I know a losing bet when I see it.”

The assassin’s eyes narrowed. “Because you see endings.”

Hel’s eyes glittered with mischief. “Good on you, figuring that out. Uncle Thor still hasn’t, so keep it to yourself, if you please. And yes, I see a bit of them. ” She grinned. “In this case, enough to know I’d lose. Let us hope the Norns be in your favor, if the rest of you plan to survive living in their blast radius while they work it out.”

“We should make a few bets with the others, though,” Natasha mused.

“I do like the way you think, darling.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this story may have the most intricate fully-formed Loki-plot in it that I've yet devised. I had to write a step-by-step myself to keep up with it, though, before the end. It's as follows:
> 
> 1) Make deal w/Mistress Death
> 
> 2) The Chitauri and Thanos: persuade them Earth is ripe for conquest.
> 
> 3) Arrive on Earth, steal tesseract, wreak minor havoc, and collect minions.
> 
> 4) While minions build necessary machines to open a portal, leave earth for a day or so to make deal w/Skrull royal family member
> 
> 5) Piss off the Kree on the way out of disputed Skrull/Kree territory, suggesting to them Thanos is your enemy and that you and he are both after the Soul Gem, which could destroy Thanos.
> 
> 6) Create a distraction, provide minions with eyeball scan, and get captured on earth. Once captured, play mind games.
> 
> 7) Later, Minions nearly destroy helicarrier & Avengers, but not quite.
> 
> 8) Stage invasion in flashiest manner available, but don't open portal to full width; any further and the battle wouldn't last long.
> 
> 9) Let invasion fail, get captured and sent back to Asgard.
> 
> 10) While being imprisoned back home, pickpocket Hel of her too-heavily-imbued trinkets; clearly, she needs to be reminded of certain lessons anyway.
> 
> 11) Wait for bounty to appeal to Kree, aided by surreptitious dream-walking.
> 
> 12) Get stolen by Kree along with the Soul Gem, and tortured until they believe they've won.
> 
> 13) Plea and offer to bargain with them, pretend to believe their promises. While they focus on that, work on the dreams and fears of their subordinates and get the Soul gem moved closer to hand.
> 
> 14) Present Kree with a plan by which to capture the Avengers and Hel: a mostly-disarmed ship, populated by less valuable crewmen and convicts, with Loki aboard. With sufficient space and other containment factors, as well as distractions and traps, it should keep Avengers contained until the auto-pilot and the rest of the armada accompanying the ship reach the agreed-upon trade-point for Thanos to collect them.
> 
> 15) Wait for Hel and Thor to show up, 80% likelihood of Avengers being with them.
> 
> 16) Get freed by Hel, give her back one of her trinkets, but not both.
> 
> 17) Hack the ship, set off distress beacons from Skrull royal family, make deal with Avengers to get them out alive.
> 
> 18) Cast cloaking spell of an infectious nature to afflict Thanos' forces and Kree to hide Skrulls from them until the opportune moment.
> 
> 19) Get Soul Gem from Kree storage, go take Thanos' soul once he and his forces are distracted by Skrulls.
> 
> 20) Hand over souls and Soul Gem both to Mistress Death. Leave the battle zone.
> 
> 21) Relax under the sworn protection of former enemies.


End file.
